I think you can document somewhere that the panel is a gnome panel, you can unlock the applets and move the nubbie to create space and add applets as you want. As Pete commented, a casual user wouldn't know it can be customized, because one wouldn't know it's actually a gnome panel. A power user would have known, and only needs a little more pointers to be able to do so, and sought help regarding customizing gnome panel somewhere else. That's why this bug is mostly invalid, at least in my opinion.
I think you can document somewhere that the panel is a gnome panel, you can unlock the applets and move the nubbie to create space and add applets as you want. As Pete commented, a casual user wouldn't know it can be customized, because one wouldn't know it's actually a gnome panel. A power user would have known, and only needs a little more pointers to be able to do so, and sought help regarding customizing gnome panel somewhere else. That's why this bug is mostly invalid, at least in my opinion.