Mandrake or Redhat should be the most popular and, in my opinion, smarter at keeping track of dependencies and detecting hardware during the installation. Of course, it's the installation program that should be praised more than anything else, but these programs are part of the package. I've had older version of Mandrake detect hardware that new versions Slackware did not. Of course, it can all be configured to work, but if you don't want to bother troubleshooting the install and want a working package out of the box, your best bet is Mandrake.
Yeah, Mandrake and Redhat tries to stick you with a large install if you just click "Next" during the install process, but there is always a point where you get to select the packages. If you don't want the bloat, uncheck it. I don't buy that argument for choosing another distro over this one. It keeps track of dependencies, so you don't end up installing a text editor, but forget to install the individual libraries that the editor needs.
Slackware has a very tight install, but it doesn't keep track of dependencies as well. Whatever you install, the differences after installation are fairly minimal. And whatever the Slackware/SuSe/Debian fans say, I'm sure any Mandrake or Redhat system can be configured to operate similarly.