Gankutsuou is great...
+1 for haibane renmei favorite
it's true that 90% of anime is crap (probably closer to 95%)
but there are a few true gems out there.
for me the top five would probably be:
haibane renmei
mushishi
kino's journey
ghost in the shell stand alone complex
anything done by miyazaki
okay well I guess that last one wasn't a single thing but it's hard to choose just a single of his works.

90% of <span class="podkreslenie">everything</span> is crap.

well the list for things all my favs would eventually reach the char limit i'll just post a few: mostly manga don't tend to watch the anime for some reason.
Boku no Futasu no Tsubasa (My two Wings)
Gokujou Drops
Mikarun X
Octave
Hanjuku Joshi
HAKODATE YOUJIN BURAICHOU HIMEGAMI
Rosario + Vampire (both seasons)
Black Cat
MAHOU TSUKAI KUROHIME
Aria
Change 123
Soul Eater
eh that's good for now

I'm a relapsed anime lover...sort of. My current fave is Planetes (just finished watching it a few weeks ago); Definitely one of the best in hard sci-fi TV shows (OMG there's no sound in space!). Just bought Beck boxset a few days ago cheap off ebay, probably will do a Beck marathon this weekend. :P

Detroit Metal City is one which I strongly recommend. If you can't laugh to this one then you are probably someone who has no sense of humor whatsoever :P
I've been reading/watching quite a lot during these last few years myself. Genre doesn't matter as I watch pretty much anything but preferences lie in humor.
Ones that I can strongly recommend:
Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, Cardcaptor Sakura, Welcome to the NHK, Allison & Lillia, K-On, Minami-Ke, Pani-Poni Dash, Toradora, Itazura na Kiss, Kaiba, Zettai Karen Children.
Then there are all the others as well - but far from all...
Rozen Maiden, Shakugan no Shana, Berserk, Black Lagoon, FMA, Great Teacher Onizuka (which by the way has a short extra manga going on at the moment: GTO - Shonan 14 days), Kannagi, Pumpkin Scissors, Solty Rei, Tytania, Shugo Chara, Claymore (manga is far superior compared to the anime ending)...
Oh well...should be enough for now :P

nobody mentioned Dragon ball and Dragon ball Z yet.
I'm a big fan and have all 110DVD's in my possession :)

I was fan too. But I've seen DB and DBZ so many times that I got sick of it.

1 word. SGT FROG ( or Keroro Gunso in Japan.)

I crave for more One PIece.

My favorite animes are mostly sci-fi (like NGE, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Ergo Proxy) but I also like many others (Sengoku Basara, Chobits, Elfen Lied, School Rumble, School Days, Love Hina).
Also, nice boat.

i also like battoussai "the slasher :)" something with kensin. Blood flows by the gallon (comparable to kill bill :p)

I'm pretty much a huge Masamune Shirow fan, and I hve some of the Appleseed and Dominion mangas, as well as the full collection of Ghost in the Shell mangas. Not a huge fan of the movies, but the series, Stand Alone Complex, was awesome.
I'm also a big fan of Ranma 1/2 since 1993, Hellsing, and Azumanga Daioh.

Fellow Anime freaks...
I need a good freeware .avi compressor for my 120gig iPod as I am going overseas for 4 weeks travel, and it would be great to be able to compress all my anime onto the iPod so I can watch them... I've tried a couple of programs but they suck - not properly shrunk so either some of the screen's missing, as in normal screen or with widescreen it cuts off both sides. Very annoying.
Any suggestions?

There are some listed in the free software list, namely: Handbrake, MediaCoder, GOM Encoder, SUPER, WinFF, StaxRip.
Try them out and see what works best for you (SUPER is a little bit wonky on Vista and 7, but works).

I'm a huge fan of the Battle Angel Alita manga known as Gunnm in Japan. It has an awesome and complex story but for some reason there is only one group that is translating it and they have not been very fast lately.
Other excellent manga is Hunter X Hunter, it has a decent story for a shonen manga and it manages to keep battles interesting to read because of how Nen works. Battles aren't necessarily won by the strongest one but the most experienced and intelligent fighter. Too bad that the author is MIA and the manga goes on hiatus for months again and again.
I used to read Gantz but some months ago I lost interest. It just felt that every story arc was more of the same but it still much better than its anime counterpart and I may continue reading it in the future.