After spending a bit of time on this, I finally came up with a solution that I am really happy with.
First off, we can come to a solution using the native Explorer by following the following guides:
This site is really amazing and there are definitely some tips that I am using. However, I came up with a much better solution, which has left my new Explorer looking like this:
I used the QTTabBar extension in order to make this work with Snipicon Icons. This is highly customizable and allows you to assign hotkeys, create a tabbed explorer, etc. It creates an entirely new experience.
While you are at it, I suggest that you also check out Search Everything (for an amazing yet light search utility that is highly customizable and can search/index networked drives) and T-Clock Redux (which allows you to have a Taskbar with small icons yet display more information on the clock as well as display a more informative/powerful calendar for quick reference).