i like the status icons that the shell has, but often times, it's empty and just
takes up space. the one most used are bluetooth and profiles, next are communication alerts, then themes. who changes their themes everyday anyway? if we take a cue from the task/status bar of both the iphone's and the nokia 5800's,

the clock plugin should display these status/alerts icons similar to how the iphone does, and since it's clickable, it will display a drop-down menu to open the clock app, change profiles, turn on/off bluetooth (heck, why not add in wifi or 3g toggles), and links view those important comms alert (missed call, text, email, etc.)

this will clear up some space for more plugins like the song currently playing
(it's up to your imagination)

it might also look cleaner if the s40-inspired task manager had integrated into it the tabbed plugins.

i'm not a big fan of the applications and contact pages in shell. it seems a little redundant since we already have the menu key, speed-dial, and smart dial/app search function. notice that if turned off, the right soft key replicates the s60 menu key? again redundant. these are smarrtphones, a good choice for this is an options menu that works with all plugins on the standby screen (depending on the highlighted plugin) sort of like a right click on a mouse. however, it does clash with start menu's fixed option app.