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I haven't been on buspar myself but my boss was on it - she had a really good experience with it! It's effective at relatively low doses, and has relatively few and mild side effects. Her kids were both going through very rough situations - her daughter had an unplanned pregnancy and was giving the baby up for adoption, son was suicidally depressed, husband had a heart attack, and she was caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting at a mall - all within like 6 weeks! That's enough to give anyone anxiety attacks! The buspar took the edge off in a big way and let her function normally. We work in mental health research so we discussed it a lot, and she did a lot of research before she went on meds. You're right, that any of the meds that treat both anxiety and depression (e.g., paxil) have a higher incidence of side effects.
I don't know what kind of counseling you've been doing, but you might look into cognitive behavior therapy. It's time-limited, and works at teaching you to retrain your cognitive processes. It's shown to be remarkably successful in treating anxiety. You might also look at a book called "Worry" by Edward Hallowell. It's got a lot of good, non-medical techniques for dealing with anxiety, and I found it to be very helpful back when I was having panic attacks.
Good luck!
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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Anatole France
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