Yeah, mine was built over time. I have the same stance on liquid cooling, but if it's done right that doesn't happen.
Still, I'd recommend when you have more money, get a tower style heatsink. I have a Thermaltake Frio with Scythe Ultra Kaze 133cfm fans on it and it's great. I'd recommend the Frio highly, as well as Prolimatech Megahalems, Coolermaster Hyper 212+, anything by Scythe USA and the Noctua D-14. Good cooling is important, since building my rig I've gotten a new case and 3x Scythe Ultra Kazes and a Delta AFB1212 to keep heat down. If you're pushing 4ghz you need this kind of cooling..
Thermal paste is important too, I used Arctic Silver 5 for a long time and recently switched from it to Innovation Cooling 7 Nano Diamond and it dropped 3c off my load temps...even on the stock cooler, good thermal paste will save you a few degrees under load.