Also the plugin "Buffer Explorer" http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=42
which lets you switch between all buffers easily.
Without it vim is not complete.
Now I'm just using ctrl-p. It does everything for me and it doesn't require ruby or navigating file trees. I can see my MRU files, open buffers, create new files, etc., etc. all in the same area.
I'm not sure if I'm revolting against plugins, but I am attempting to remove all the extra crap I don't use but feel like I needed at some point. I recently got rid of powerline because it does nothing extra for me. It did look pretty, but that was really it.
Less is more :D
tl;dr: ctrl-p is real nice