I second that. A quick search for apps like Gnome Shell, KDE Launcher, Quick Silver, Launchy, even the Windows 7 Start Menu would be amazing. Who wants to manually look for stuff?

The App-Search-Widget and Shortcut Stash widget both do this in limited scope, from the desktop. But always in search of speed I am not quite satisfied with these. A global shortcut to launch these or another similar app is my multi-tasking dream.