Pixel painter?

I have Corel Draw and Paint, Photoshop, MicroAngelo, MSPaint, PovRay, and a hundred other image-creating/editing programs, but I don't have the one I want.

The one I want will be small so that it will run on my P400 while I also have VB, OE, WinAmp and Explorer open, it will do simple draw shapes and have at least a gradient fill. It will do 256 colors or more.

Unlike Corel and Paintshop, it will not create a mask everytime you move a mouse. Unlike Microangelo it will let you decide image size. Unlike Draw it will not require major effort to export a simple BMP. Unlike all of those it will not take 5 minutes to fire up.

I spent all morning searching for one and trying out various freeware tile, icon and sprite programs. I was unable to find one that was both small and well made. None of them did what I wanted.

Now I am frustrated and a little psychotic. I just want to be able to quickly draw a small image when I need one for a button or lable or sprite. I mean, I did graphics work professionally for almost 20 years, but now I just want to draw a square with a sloping insert and I have to reboot my computer twice to get that done in Corel?

Does anyone have a recommendation for a simple pixel editing program with gradient fill, image resizing, and full color? You could make an old man happy, especially if it is freeware.

If this is not the right place to ask this I apologize and will be happy to move to the right forum.