Custom Titles

I'm actually planning my first true fan edit in... okay a long time.  I'm looking to do some opening titles, nothing special, just some plain text on a black screen.

What is the easiest/best way?

I've used Womble in the past, but their encoder is ugly.

I've also used a generic paint program to make title cards, and then use avisynth scripting to string them together with fade ins and outs... which is time consuming.

Any suggestions?