WPDesigner.com actually uses the following plugins:
Ajax Comments 2.0
Allow your users to post a comment without reloading the page.
Probably one of the best ways you could spice up your WordPress Blog with AJAX; readers love it! Must see for yourself.
Akismet
This plugin filters spam comments. To install it, you need an API key; and to get the API key, you need a WordPress.com account.
Akismet has protected your site from 18,799 spam comments.
Author Highlight
Allows you to add a unique style to comments made by you, the blog author. This plugin is easy to install, practical, and important, especially important for this blog. It makes it easier for readers to easily spot my comments for things like answers to tutorial questions.
Clean Options
Finds orphaned options and allows for their removal from the wp_options table.
It’s good for cleaning up your blog after removing unwanted plugins.
Comment License
I use this to clarify how I handle comments posted on this blog.
By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate comments will be removed at my discretion.
Executable PHP Widget
Use this for activating sidebar widget plugins.
Feedburner Feed Replacement
Feedburner has taken over the development of this plugin and renamed it to Feedsmith. It redirects all your subscribers to using your feed from Feedburner so you could keep track of the actual number of subscribers.
Live
This is the only toy on my plugins list. You get to watch the actions on your blog, live.
MyAvatars
Put a face to your blog commenters (those that have an account on MyBlogLog).
Optimal Title
Instead of the default title structure, for example, WPDesigner > About, this plugin switches it around to About > WPDesigner. It’s good for search engine optimization (SEO) reasons.
Preview Frame
Due to the recent changes in WordPress 2.2, use this plugin to bring back the preview frame while your drafting a post.
RSS Feed Signature
I use this plugin to tag all my posts with a copyright message and a link back WPDesigner.com. It’s a nice way to protect your content and piggyback splogs (spam blogs) for more traffic.
runPHP
Allows you to use PHP code within your posts.
Subscribe To Comments
This one lets readers subscribe to comments and follow the conversation through email notifications.
WordPress Download Monitor
I use this to keep track of WordPress theme downloads.
WP-Polls
This comes with a sidebar widget. Run polls within your posts or in the sidebar.
At this point, it’s very time consuming to put together a top plugins list because there are so many plugins out there. That’s why I chose to put together a list for plugins that I actually use.
What works for one blog doesn’t necessarily work for another. That’s why it’s important to test the plugins for yourself.
For me, I’m very picky. If it’s hard to install or hard to uninstall, I wouldn’t bother with it in the first place. Also, I wouldn’t install plugins that need extensive integrations or theme modifications several months after launching a blog. If I ever need a plugin like that, I would decide for sure before I launch my blog.