I've been using my own modeline this week and I like the simplicity of it: Buffer name, file state (unsaved/saved), file encoding, clock, system load and line & column numbers. That's it.
(setq display-time-day-and-date nil)
(setq display-time-load-average nil)
(setq display-time-24hr-format t)
(display-time-mode 1)
(setq-default mode-line-format '(" %b %* %z " display-time-string " (%l, %c)"))
