Don't know if this helps, but there have been several major driver releases recently. I'm running some leaked x43's on another machine with a Radeon VE in it without problems, and many other people have good things to say about those drivers. Then, today, ATI released some official drivers with a lower version, x35 I think, and almost at the same time a new set of leaked ones x52 became available. The official ones have gotten poor reviews, the feedback on the newest leaked drivers has been mostly postive.
The R100 family (Radeon, 7500) finally seems to have some very good drivers, which give me hope that the R200 (8500) cards will soon be as solid. I'm psyched to get this card because: it's less than $50 more than a 7500 or some flavors of the original Radeon; it goes toe-to-toe with the GF3 Ti 500 which costs $100 more (this is according to the latest 8500 reviews anyway); and, like I said, I've been living in the stone age of graphics technology