I loved VC. Its tiny size (less than 100k) made it fit on any floppy disk, even when it was already almost full. It inspired me by showing how powerful our computers are. It was an order of magnitude smaller than NC, if I remember correctly.
I loved Volcov commander. Apart from a tiny size and super-fast speed, I remember it could handle Cyrillic admirably, contrary to Norton Commander.
There were more, eg DOS navigator, Far manager. The latter is still in development.
Yes, sorry. I meant it to be illustrative of many of them being out there and influencing one another. I'm not sure I could put together a definitive list in the scope of an HN comment. vc was definitely worth mentioning, so thanks for bringing it up.