Your ED2K platform of choice.

I'm looking for suggestions on the best platform to use to access the ED2K network.

I would think that the official version of Emule is not safe so people probably use a lite or safe version? OR something else?

Try eMulePlus: http://emuleplus.info/

Use the original client. I believe it is the best. Read this from the official faq:

Are Mods better or faster?
Mostly no. The official eMule versions profit from mod development but the modders cannot change eMule's inner working much without rendering it incompatible with the rest of the network. This fact makes any speed improvements very unlikely.
The mods offer new features and possibly new bugs which you may or may not like, yet some of them have unfeatures which are extremely harmful for the whole network. These leecher versions should not be used and the official eMule tries to cut them down by security features and by banning them.
Mod versions offered on our forums play fair and stick to the network's rules.