Anyone using this beast?

I'm desperate to set up a non-computer person with a desktop on a
Mandrake 8.1 system.  KDE is ALMOST right --- the desktop's great, but
<rant>konqueror is totally bagbiting as a file manager (for heaven's
sake, to make a new "folder," you gotta go under the Edit menu (which
NO ONE uses for that), then open the create new choice, THEN choose
directory (which only people like me know is what a folder really
is). </rant>

So... I thought of nautilus.  But nautilus thinks star writer
documents are zip archives and no matter what I do, I can't change
it's mind.  <rant>I changed the &obscenity "file associations" in the
&obscenity "control center" and it doesn't make any &obscenity
difference.  I HATE GUI's.  Give me a CLI any day.</rant>

This seems like a bug.  

Have any of you all been using nautilus?  Is it buggy or ok?

any alternative suggestions for a user friendly file wrangler?

Thanks,
R

Did I mention that I hate GUIs?