Could you tell us specifically what you hate about it? The UI? Is
something that previously worked no longer working? Thanks for the
upcoming reply.

Hate is a harsh word. I wonder what there is to hate. I have been using Hardy
for weeks now with no problems. Given that 8.04 is a Long Term Support release
and 7.10 is not, I would think that it would be preferable to work out the
problems with Hardy than to go back to 7.10. Also, I wonder how current your
copy is. It is not due for final release until Thursday. If your copy is older
and you have not kept it up-to-date, it is unfair to blame 8.04. There have been
daily updates of anywhere from 20 to 80 packages per day for the last while.

If your CD ROM is not functioning properly then you can try other installation
methods, including doing a network or usb installation (flash or external
drive). There is also the wubi-installer if you have Windows already installed.
You will probably have to download the alternate CD.

....softpedia.com/.../...-Methods-for-Gutsy-69157.\
shtml
www.ubuntugeek.com/install-ubuntukubuntuedubuntuxubuntu-without-cdrom-dri\
ve.html

If you want to try other distros then you should. You need to compare and find
what works best for you and meets your needs.

Try SimplyMEPIS: www.mepislovers.org/.../manual7_4-2.html
or these with other distros:
polishlinux.org/.../
www.think....org/.../Installation_on_ThinkPads_without_CD-ROM_drive

Yes, I've kept it up-to-date. And, yes, I realize 8.04 is an LTS (yey! I
actually KNOW what that means!). Hardy works well enough ... but there
is some fine tuning that I hope will be resolved with the final release.

This is more the larger issue of having problems with flash drives all
of a sudden. I was able, through, lots of google-ing, to finally resolve
a problem with being able to mount the drive in the first place. But, I
can't boot an OS from it for some reason (which is how I installed
Ubuntu on this machine in the first place).

My machine is - while only a year old - in short, a piece of junk. I
finally made the plunge to commit to Linux, and Ubuntu specifically,
because it runs quicker and smoother than Windows on this machine.

You call your machine "junk". Obviously you would not recommend
it. What brand and model is it, so that we can be advised to avoid it?

Check with fdisk and see if there is a partition on the flash drive marked as
a main bootable partition, just like a hard drive. It should work as I have
installed linux on a CF and run a system from it.