What a fabulous question!
Now this is an old thread, but I think it would be interesting to know about what has changed for people who posted or read it a year, even two years ago.
The ones I always have open are:
Firefox
Editplus
a43
And FileBox Extender, if that counts, although I think that gets into what is always running which is a whole nother show.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody made a Firefox extension that was a real everyday jeans text editor and then made another one that was a file manager!
If we are obliged to run a squillion Firefox extensions anyway, why not have some to replace EditPlus and a43, is what I am thinking.
But this is not the place for such musings, I digressed. I'm sorry.
So, for the ones who posted or just read it long ago, is your answer still the same?
And for people who are new like me, what applications do you live in?