Well, it's no help with MOVs, as it only understand AVI envelopes (and WMV to a lesser extent). But it can help you see what codecs are on your system and how the system is trying to use them. Probably less so with encoding now that I think of it.

What "mess" did K-Lite create? I have had zero problem with it, which is more than I can say for VLC. (I have never gotten VLC under Windows to play anything without an hour of fiddling, but that's beside the point.) The only thing I can think of that you might be talking about is the installation of Media Player Classic, and maybe the quasi-legal Real- and Quicktime-Alternatives. But you can install it without any of those.