If you want as close to stock as possible, I would recommend Bugless Beast v.6.2.1. It is a Froyo-based ROM and Pete has put a lot of effort into providing it without all the bells and whistles of other customized ROMs, but still optimized with a few built in tools for easy maintenance and is quite stable.
You could also try his Gingerbread GPA series ROMs. However, like most Gingerbread ROMs, there may be a couple of issues.
Look into Project Elite 4.2. It seems to have the best stability on my phone along with some tools to help with performance. There are themes to change how it looks as well. The Gingerbread ROMS seem to give me fits after a short while, (Hours) while the Froyo ROMS just keep ticking along.
ok, so I downloaded a ROM, but the search on this site sucks so damn bad I can't find a decent thread on how to install it. I assume that I just rename it to update.zip and install it like any other, but I don't want to mess anything up. Is that all I do? (other than backup everything which i have, and wipe first)