Post lxp-icewm experience (dropped it as being too limited for me). Redid the whole system, using fluxbox now (all keys properly mapped etc ...). Gave up on heavier desktop suites like Gnome, Kde and yes even Xfce seems too heavy to be as responsive as pdaxii13's matchbox.
Not a fan of Gpe or Matchbox so I fiddled until I got something fast and pretty enough to enjoy. Ended up on Fluxbox (have an alt blackbox setup too). Mostly driven from hotkey combos, silkscreen and buttons.
Fluxbox running on its own, rox as the desktop (configured to pass clicks to WM), xbindkeys and gnome-power-manager at start. Seems to
be very responsive. Key and Mouse bindings all work with Fn, Alt and Shift (can post keys and init files if needed).
Main apps mapped to silkscreen and buttons. These are the mapped apps; Xfe (powerful filemanger), gMpc (Mp3 Player), eCalc (Hotkey), sakura (Hotkey), Screenshot.sh (Hotkey), Osmo (Unified Pim), Pidgin (Unified IM), Sylpheed (Mail), gThumb (Photo management), Leafpad (Default gui editor), gRun (Light Run), IceHamster, gPS (Gui top).
I have mpd and dbus set to restart everytime X does, seems to help me not forgetting them
Shameless screeny to follow.