Try rebinding your shortcuts. These made OSX usable for me without resorting to a full blown tiling wm. It's not as fun as xmonad, but it speeds things up. There's a tweak for decreasing the animation time, I believe it's toggleable via in Prefrences.

Cmd-j/k for next/prev space, cmd-h/k for switching windows. Cmd-H/J/K/L for desktops 1-4. I spend most days in vim/screen anyway so it feels natural.