
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 applications 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. 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.