Ah, a balance I've been trying to find since I started here.
Personally I try to stick to the defaults when possible (eg WMP as the default player for media, and have VLC/Media Player Classic as an alternative). Firefox is fine, but personally I'd stick to IE7 as the default browser - you just open yourself up to a fair bit of leg-work (or VNCing!) in a corporate environment otherwise, I've found. Firefox is the default here at the moment, but I'll be making another image over the summer, and it will make way to IE7.
As I hate Ghost, I'll recommend True Image over it first.
Right.
+ Foxit (agreed)
+ FastStone Image Viewer (full-size image preview, and basic editor - better than the Windows default, and faster
IMO)
+ Paint.NET (why use Paint?)
+ CD Images*
+ Google Earth (Why not! It's awesome! Maybe because I work in a school we're a little more open to these sort of things though)
+ ActiveSync?
+ ImgBurn
+ VNC as already mentioned
+ XviD or DivX (and/or FFDShow) if VLC isn't the default player - I
really wouldn't use Codec packs in a domain environment... I wouldn't use them at any point ever in all of time personally...
+ QuickTime and Real Alternative - legally they're questionable, but a jail term is still better than Quicktime and RealPlayer
+ A Remote Desktop Client shortcut to the server... without passwords saved on it, obviously.
Consider if you want to have Offline Files enabled or not - I've found it handy on laptops which will be used wirelessly, but it's just a faff on anything CAT5ed in my limited experience with it.
* CD Images is a link I have to some backed-up CDs and DVDs on a server location. Rather than having a stockpile of disks, I back them up (Nero or whatever is fine for that), and install Daemon Tools, using the command line to mount virtual disks when they're needed, and unmounting them as part of the log-off script - deselect the 'Secure mode' option in DT after installing it, or it will ask every time you mount or unmount an image.