Although never user nor developer of Mandrake (Debian dude here) I really appreciated their effort and work, they really did some astonishing in those days, I just really think they didn't have the luck to hit it in right time. They were really innovative and really tried to make user experience great even before PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Mint, openSUSE and others tried that.

While Mageia is there, they seem to have hard time to innovate and keep the pace, but I am still glad they are here.