Quang Pham of Haha.nu just posted one of the most useful top 10 list I've seen in a while: a list of lesser known Windows freewares/sharewares with the functionality but not the bloat of commercial programs.
Included in the list are recuva (a free file recovery to recover accidentally deleted files), Notepad++ (which replaces and extends the functionality of Window's utilitarian Notepad), i.Scribe (an email client that replaces the bloated Outlook) and so on.
Link - Thanks Quang!