I tend to use the command line for file transfers. ISTR having a preference for one of the GUI apps, but I use it so infrequently that I forget which it was.

I use NeoOffice. It's pretty much the same codebase as OpenOffice, but it was ported to native Mac APIs way before the official OpenOffice was. There's probably not a lot of difference either way. I hear that if you donate to the NeoOffice guy, his support is incredible. Also, I have a problem where OpenOffice freaks out, apparently because of Zooom/2.