Last weekend I got the newest E17 available via Ebuntu to try it out, and I can say it has made quite an improvement since the last time tried it.

Some of the things I was missing are there now, like the taskbar, and other things are just easily configurable to fit my needs. I was able to make that panel look similar to what I am used to (it's called a shelf in E17). The only thing missing from there is a system tray which I need for some apps, so I added "trayer" which creates that panel at the top, though always half empty right now.