I'd go down the Picassa route. You get pretty much everything you need. It also has the best photo viewer I've seen. Fast and intuitive.
The editor is sufficient for most basic stuff, and should you want to explore your inner artist, go for a FREE copy of Photoshop CS2. It's truly brilliant - flawed too, but then all the serious editing stuff is a bit flaky.
A photoshop plus is the amazing amount of help available online. Anything you want to achieve, someone has done it and then posted how to do it
