Are we having fun yet?
Let's go slow here, I'll be switching over to suse shortly so I can answer specific questions.
Seeing you go thru these other distro's (all of which I've used) Let me comment on them:
1. Mephis nice looking layout, text is blurry and some people (me included) could not get the graphics system working. if it isn't nvidia or ati, it doesn;t work right. too bad. Format hda11
2. PClinuxos a pretty solid distro, excellent web multimedia support out of the box, has a nice control center
that is fairly easy to use. Initially I had some issues, but after doing a distro upgrade to a newer level it has been very good. you may need to try one of their failsafe settings when booting the live cd. you may want some more experience before using it tho.
3. Gentoo- most certainly does have a gui, but you have to make it yourself. requires alot of reading and care following of their lengthy instructions to be successful.
Now re your first post, I prefer "new linux user". Newbie seems to infer new to pcing altogether.
Now I know you want instant gratification, ala windoze, but remember, this is a free os, and many of the apps came from people putting in their own time to write the code, and others taking the time to tailor it to each distro. That does lead to some problems, as when they write instructions, sometimes it is a little different or they weren't exactly clear when they wrote them.
That said, don't be so discouraged, you're actually doing quite well. there IS a learning curve. I'll get back to you later on how to setup a floppy and a usb drive after I boot the other laptop with suse on it.
I know guys who installed suse on their parent;s pc for their use, and they are running along just fine.
oh, I tell a lie, I know 'EXIT'. 
