I've come across Flexi Auth (http://haseydesign.com/flexi-auth/). It looks very promising, and I've started using it. It has wonderfful features. Fully integrates with CI, and comes with two different library files, in which one is very heavy loaded with all the functions and the other one contains only the validations.
One of the best is that the newly registered member gets temporary access for a given amount of time on the site, until they click on the link from their email and activate.
