Thought about your post when I was in the kitchen last night, considered which of my cookware I use all the time. Here's my recommendations:
*scanpan classic frypan (
http://www.scanpan.com/cookware/collection/classic.html)
I got one of these as a wedding present; oldest child headed off to college this year and the pan is still going strong, non-stick surface still intact (although I use butter and oil for cooking because I like the way food turns out with them). To clean it, I just get the pan hot, and then run water into it, and swirl it around, give it a swish with a scrubber, and all the cooked on food releases. Rinse and I'm ready to go next time. Mine has a glass lid which I use intermittently.
*next gen, not-your-grandma's, pressure cooker; I have two, a 6quart T-Fal and a 4-qt Magafesa. Use one or the other multiple times a week. They turn out great stews, soups, rice, roasts, spuds, yadda, and do it in very short order, and the flavor of foods is much improved. I don't care much for crock-pot cooking, as the flavors of all the foods seem to blend together; with pressure cookers, the carrots still taste like carrots and the chicken like chicken--hard to describe--needs to be experienced to be appreciated. I like being able to get home, get a fire going, get the dog fed, and get dinner prepped, cooked, and on the table within forty minutes or so, and the pressure cooker is an essential tool for this. I prefer the kind with stainless steel sandwiching an aluminum core. Here's a place to start familiarizing yourself with them if you're not familiar:
http://www.bestpressurecookerreviews.com/
*my next most frequently used cooking implements are square and rectangular pyrex baking dishes (cake-pan sized), and two or three saucepans.
The above cooking dishes are what I use for about 95% of my cooking.