The lack of system indicator applets was solved by using conky to overlay information on the desktop.
Frippery's gnome-shell extensions also make the experience less frustrating.
However, it still feels like everything I've done have been finding /work-arounds/ rather than /customisation/. In the end the whole idea of an application-centric desktop is unsuitable for me -- I would expect this to be true for the majority of established linux users.
