Does Lubuntu use all the latest drivers etcetera?

Lubuntu, which is a part of Ubuntu, uses exactly the same drivers and all the software from Ubuntu is readily available. There's also no problem of just installing it from within a normal Ubuntu install and then you can choose when you login. I've also been told, but not confirmed, that you can run indicators for Unity on LXpanel. You can install just LXDE by installing http://apt.ubuntu.com/p/lxde, which is recommendable if you want to replace the shell, but still use Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, etc. Lubuntu replaces all of those, but then there's nothing wrong with installing them as well. http://apt.ubuntu.com/p/lubuntu-desktop for the entire package.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with using Lubuntu. The benefit from using Unity is that you get far easier and faster access to data and apps, along with some nice window handling capabilities. But if you can live without those and want a really snappy DE, then LXDE is quite nice.

Lubuntu is the lighter flavour available which has a very fast desktop but is missing some of the elements of it's bigger brother... If you can live without the eye candy, multimedia keys (volume up/down/mute) and use a lighter office suite (Abiword, Gnumeric) then it's perfect for you... This is my distro of choice...