I hate the new nero too, lots of bloat, Ive been using the old version, according to some, the best one when it comes to essential features, its Nero v6.1. Lemme know if you wanna try it out, I have the setup files with crack :P. last time I check it uses 30mb+ of ram upon launching. I recently have been using imgburn exclusively as it is very reliable, can burn isos and many different image files, has support for dvd video and audio, copy cds and dvds as isos, has verification capabilities, sector viewer, and you can also burn data files via the build command, all in one light program (less than 5mb!) The only thing imgburn cant do that I need nero for is to burn multisession discs.
You might also wanna try CDburnerxp, its free, my geeky friend says he prefers it over imgburn as it has support for bluray too lol.
CDBurnerXP: Introduction and News
Jam it back in, in the dark.