I had been using Google Reader for a while when I cam across Netvibes. I liked it because I could customize a lot, something Google Reader doesn't really offer. But after a while and with the many feeds I read (about 200) it became complicated to handle in Netvibes, and I went back to Google Reader.
I am very much used to reading all the items sequentially, so I do categorize my feeds but only for searching & finding if I want to recommend a certain feed to someone. The news items are just read one by one, as they are updated.
However, even though Google Reader is not beta anymore, changes are made by Google and then I have to wait for my browser extensions to be updated as well to cope with that change. This made me consider going away from Google Reader and try a completely
different feed reader: newsbeuter.
To sum it up, google reader works but their changes to the interface make it a less pleasant experience so I will retake control of the software.