I think that LXDE can attract a bunch of new users with some little changes, that make it look and feel more like Gnome2 (that was simply great):
1. Make the application menu more attractive, with big icons, like in Gnome2.
2. Make a more usable places menu, like it was in Gnome2. Just 'click and open', and also make it shows removable-drives.
3. Make lxpanel show the icon theme 'starthere'-icon, instead of the ugly button that has now.
4. Make lxpanel show the panel background that it's included in the gtk-theme automatically. Like gnome-panel and xfce4-panel.
5. Include a session-menu applet to let the user logout, restart or shutdown quick from the panel, something like the indicator-session applet, from Ubuntu.
6. Add a plugin for lxappareance that can change metacity (or xfwm4) themes, to give a chance to use it, instead of openbox. And also make it change the wallpaper.
7. Make pcmanfm mount removable-drives on the Desktop. Like in nautilus or thunar (xfdesktop4). And add the 'open-in-terminal' option also in the Desktop.
8. Make the volume applet shows pavucontrol, alsamixer or something, to adjust the volume more easily. And also include an option to select the sound theme.