That's because Ubuntu comes with all kinds of extra crap. What you should do is download ndiswrapper and the Windows drivers you need and burn them to a CD, and then you can install those on Fedora and all should be well with the world.
The 'bulk' isn't really as negative as you're making it seem. It sure does come with things you'll probably never use, but it works out of the box more often than any distro of Linux I've ever used.
For the record, I've used Fedora 8 on my machine as well. It doesn't run any faster.
I don't think I'd like to use Ubuntu as a server OS, but it kicks ass for a desktop OS. It's extremely well managed and I've been impressed time after time with how well it works with my hardware.
Crazed, as for the sound, I think the best way to find a solution for it is to find the name of your hardware, type it into Google and hack "Ubuntu" on the end. You should get plenty of helpful results.