Similar thing just started happening to me recently, and I was just visiting to post for help myself over in the troubleshooting section. On my OS2008 N800, all my desktop applets periodically turn off completely, and I simultaneously lose the organization of the launcher panel--it reverts to the default icon order. I would describe it as losing the persistence of several desktop settings (launcher panel and desktop applets.) I have not yet figured out if it correlates to any action in particular.

I think the problem started a few days ago when I updated a whole host of software, after enabling the "Temporary" repositories posted here back in December to fix a typographical error in one of the repositories. Updated software included Modest (probably NOT from the temp. repository), OpenSSH, and Maemo Mapper. XL1200c: have you recently updated or installed any of these?

Log file to search, anyone? TIA.