I love opera, its so much more easier to navigate then ie, i think the best thing would be the mouse gestures, for examlpe
r-click + left = go back in history
r-click + right fo forward in history
r-click + up then down - auto reload page
r-click + down then up - duplicate window
r-click + right,left,right - auto close window
There are simply loads, a simple click and a movement will do something, i love it - and this way i use cache so much more than i did with ie,
As probably mentioned, with opera you wont have to have x amount of windows opened in your taskbar, for example;
where as with opera you can use tabbing;
Its amazing, im so glad i stopped using ie, (well i stopped using ie in an attempt to go anti-microsoft but the attempt failed as im still using there o.s currently) :-)
Hope you give it a try, and as said, the banner is nothing, you dont notice it
James