It's just a matter of taste. I tried Hyperspin and ended up doing everything I could to get it to not look and feel like Hyperspin.
I dislike the whole "wheel" concept, so I guess there wasn't much hope for me.
I don't like GameEx and the others that look and feel like media center software....because they look and feel like media center software, not like an arcade game.
I use MALA. It's basically just a gamelist that you choose the font and color for, plus any other pictures, video, or info you want displayed for a game.
You decide what is displayed, where it is displayed and how big it is.
It looks as slick or basic as your background picture editing skills allow.
If you can draw what you want your front-end to look like in photoshop, you can make MALA look like it.
You can have different themes for different emulators if you want.
I have a very basic theme, but it's exactly what I want.
(the marquee, screenshot, & CP change with the highlighted game)
Driving cab one is more polished
I gotta start doing some different color schemes.......right after I finish the current red and black cab.
Go to the MALA forum and search for "theme" to see what people have come up with.
The biggest complaint most people have about it is that it can't display tranparent layers correctly, so for example, you can't display the video inside a circle with the edges of the video covered up.
With some work-arounds, it's possible to have all the arcade games show up in your MAME list, even if they use a different emulator.
It isn't easy, but well worth it IMO.