Has anyone tried Xfce? I've always used this environment, it is the one used by the super lightweight distros, should be the less fancier and thus snappier one.
I missed this question on previously reply. Anyway, i choose Xfce whenever i use VM or old device. For basic usage, i have no complaint about it. While other lightweight DE or WM exist (such as LXDE, MATE or IceWM), i choose Xfce since AFAIK it's most popular among other lightweight DE or WM.
Although I fail to see how the trashcan will pose a problem, because you can avoid having to do that by simply deleting your files with rm command.
That's true. I mentioned that since OP mentioned he wants something that just works and i don't know whether OP prefer to use terminal or GUI file manager.