For free you can try cLaunch. You also need to tweak it for VGA. I wrote about it here:
http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showt...ht=cLaunch+vga. I like it but I do not use it anymore.
My favorite application launchers are MortButtons, Calligrapher, and Double Launcher. I do not like going to the today screen to launch things. These are also very light on resources (not Calligrapher but I use it anyway). I assign mort button pannels to pencommander gestures--easy ones like 0,1,2,3 etc. 0=morttasks for me. I have the other launchers but this is my favorite. I try to keep my system light. To make it even lighter you can have MortButtons not remain in memory. It launches a little slower but conserves more resources.