Every once in a while I would try a new distro as live CD, just for kicks, and to see how things are different. I learned how to use my own window manager and terminal program. I found that the necessary elements needed for working Linux are actually quite small, and most everything beyond that is for convenience.
When you learn to use the terminal, your entire perspective on how to use a computer changes. No longer are you wasting time swishing your mouse around, clicking on folders and icons. Instead, you live on the keyboard, using hotkeys, personal aliases, tab completion, STDIO piping, dot files, terminal based text editors... There's a lot to master.
But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. We can play music with MPD/Ncmpcpp, play Tetris, retrieve HN articles and view comments, retrieve 3-day local weather with animations, we can even browse webpages. It's actually a fun world in the terminal, and we can eliminate the need for otherwise fatty software.
If you're looking for something that Just Werks as a Windows replacement, any Ubuntu derivative will be fine. If you're looking for something that requires more work but might spur interest (i.e. hobby), you might try Arch or Gentoo. And if you're looking for rice examples, check out Reddit/unixporn.