Unfortunately KDE3s configuration is horribly broken in dozens of small ways in 2009.0, and it is almost as unusable as KDE4.
Perhaps moreso, I gave up on it after ~ 30 min of trying to fix it manually.
You cannot even change the default program from the "open with" dialog anymore, and you can no longer add arguments-- The parser is broken still. Dolphin is nearly useless...
I'm still trying to get the hang of KDE4 on my main box, as it works mostly on a dual core Athlon w/4G of memory, but on slower hardware, forget it.
The only reason I'm still running it is for the latest versions of a few programs, and the expectation it will be fixed (soon) by some magic updates.
I ran cooker for a year or so at one point, ran updates on a cron job, worked great... 2009.0? not so much.
I just had to install a KNOPPIX CD on an old bit of kit here for a strange reason I won't go into... usually gets borked running updates, but worked fine for some reason... 2009.0 will install fine on same setup, but is so insanely slow by comparison it is rediculous....it was gruesome in 2009.0 even w/icewm, and flew running Debian w/KDE3.