Now that michaaa62 mentions the 'Extras category' (in Settings app), it would very intersting, if not possible that Powatool upgrade, to set a new application in that 'Extras' for easy configuration of status bar and status area applets. Would it be difficult to create such app to easily modify "/etc/hildon-desktop/status-menu.plugins"?.
Just for some expert, why so many ".desktop" files in "/usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu" are not shown in the aforementioned ".plugins" file? Due to that, you can not set the order of them.

Interesting info at: "http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/....AC.81guration" but not for a newbie.