When I try to run it from the menu, it fails to load, although it appears to do so (the program title appears and the little wheel keeps spinning), but if I run it from the command-line via ssh (/usr/bin/panucci) it works.

I found out by editting /usr/share/applications/hildon/panucci.desktop that if I comment out the line "X-Osso-Service=org.panucci.pannuciInterface" it works. It seems a dbus problem thus.