What I would really really like, is an maemo version of OSX's Nerdtool/Geektool. Its basically a transparent xterm that displays the output of a command/shellscript on the desktop. There should be an option to make it update at certain intervals.

I use Nerdtool on OSX to curl a webpage, collect the data that I need, make it readable and then output it on the desktop.

I dont think it would be that hard to make...

Geektool in action http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/ecrans.php