@sethkha
First, great idea. Such a hasel to have to go programme > file, when file > programme sometimes seems a lot more logical.

Edit: thanks to electricaudio for the idea and sethhha for getting the development rolling

Now, a few ideas...

Design/implementation method
Might this be best displayed using the browser? Make a webpage to look like a file explorer: use some server-side scripts to call shell functions and then use some quick and easy css/js to parse/format the output, link thumbnails etc.?
- possibly wrap up as an xpi (mozilla plugin), instead of a deb?
- The layout would be easy to customise and the desktop can have many bookmarks to the same uri, though the server would need to be able to determine the folder to display based on some other info such as the string in the <title /> tag (saved in the bookmark)

I did have a go at writing my first perl script to output ls -a but couldn't work out how to pass an arbitrary.directory to the function - I just got -1 as the output! Though, I did find this extensive article.

In short, the browser provides an always ready (always running!), ready made UI - so why not use it if possible?

Feature request: "open-with"
Something that's lacking in maemo is the ability to arbitrarily open files with a given programme. This could be exteneded to set different default type-to-programme associations from the in built ones. It would also be able to handle extension-less files.
- Using the browser paradigm above: in hover mode, there could be a few options akin to a right-click menu.

As for icons, might it be an idea to use a modified version of the icon form programme a given file is expected to open with e.g htm/html files might have a mini globe (like the "Web" icon) or if mp3 files are supposed to open with, say, KMplayer - they'd get a mini KMplayer icon. Easy for users to anticipate what'll happen. If you were feeling really bored I'm sure it'd be possible to write/include some functionality that converted the programme icon into a file icon!?!

... just a few thoughts...