Curious what you don't like about iPhoto.
Fastest app so far as loading thumbs and general use goes:
Photo Mechanic.
Graphic Converter is nice, but pokey slow.
To be fair I havn't had the Mac long enough to really use and evaluate all of the features of any of the programs it came with. I was a PC user for too many years, I guess. But, the first thing I found that I didn't like is that iPhoto wants to download all of the pictures from the CF card without giving me an option to select which ones I would like to download. Next, there doesn't seem to be any "Batch" rotate, Batch delete, Batch rename etc to work on a group of selected photos, unless I am missing this feature. And, I miss the PC type "Driectory tree" with subfolders etc, a way of visualizing where I have my photos that I'm really used to.
I'll give it a go... and see what happens but I have already purchased Graphics Converter for $30
http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index._cGlkPTE5Mw_.html and it seems to have most of the features I'm looking for. thanks for asking,