IMO desktop mode exists only because our integration is not very good. It should die sooner, rather than later, it's just a big hack. So we should rather focus on getting apps to work in non-desktop more, rather then resurrecting the silly desktop option.
I wholeheartedly disagree here.. I only use (and only ever will) use Desktop mode in Wine. It's the same (for me) as using Tabbed browsing in Mozilla : you have all the related mess in one window :-)
I agree that it seems to be a hack for now because of the one application <=> one desktop window 'feature' but well, Alexandre promised this to be fixed for 1.1 :-))
Lionel