I am outgrowing my Excel spreadsheets for managing all my pix, sites and sales. Not to mention, I still keyword and descript by hand...  I need something with some bite to it!  I'm reading about  Extensis Portfolio 8.5,  ACDsee Pro Photo,  MS  Expression Media,  ImageFolio Commerce, GraphicDetail's Thumbs Up, Adobe Lightbox, Canto Cumulus 7.5.... yikes!!!   
  I need some good solid advice and opinions.  What do you use and why?  Are you happy with it?

I tried them all, and somehow they were lacking or had too much. I don't need to resize/rotate/email/blabla an image, that's done in PS of course. A management script should stay away from my images themselves.

The ProStockMaster is written in Java, so quite slow on my outdated PC. I tried the "file properties" thingie that's built into the XP file system, but it didn't work. MS planned a virtual content-drive file system in Longhorn/Vista beta, but it was postponed till the next Windows version. That would really be a great thing. I think the Mac has a thing like that already. Searchlight? Any Mac-ers in the audience?

As to keywords, I wrote my own script (link on bottom) and I use the IPTC metadata extensively.

Since my background is programming, I have been playing with the idea to write a lean script that just does what a stocker wants concerning file-tracking, and not more. That is, just keep track of metadata, where uploaded, result of upload, sales. Using XMP-files is an option.

Sales reports are not really necessary since it needs access to the account, and not many people (included myself) do like that.

It would help to know what your workflow is to design a spec for a real useful image management program.