Yeah it shouldn't be a major problem for you to switch over, once you've found the DE that clicks for you I'd advise moving onto a slightly more in depth distribution like arch, it's very rewarding (and you can set your performance bar pretty much where you want it to be).
I may well do that. Given that I'm dual booting this netbook with Windows 7, is removing Ubuntu and installing something else easy and clean? I'd like to try a few different versions, but not if it's going to be a nightmare to do each time because I'm dual booting...