Maybe figuring out all of that information from scratch is, but things like replacing NetworkManager with WICD is as simple on Ubuntu as 'apt-get install wicd' (though I don't know off-hand if you need to add a 3rd-party repo, but it's not like Canonical hasn't added GUI interfaces for doing that -- rather than mucking around in /etc/apt/sources.{d/,list})
The udev rules that do the auto-mounting of usb-mass-storage devices are already there on your system. Unless you need to mount special devices like Bluetooth filesystems or digital cameras over USB, then you may not need gnome-vfs (and it may launch automatically once you first start nautilus, I'm not sure). Note, that in the past this auto-mounting was done by GNOME or KDE-specific daemons, udev has replaced them (at least on Ubuntu, and I assume Debian).
Launching gnome-power-manager is as simple as adding "gnome-power-manager&" to whatever your startup script is. With someone that has the relevant information, these things are relatively easy. bbs.archlinux.org is a good resource too (since it seems lots of Arch users go for alternative desktop environments -- even if 'desktop environment' just consists of a window manager).
The udev rules that do the auto-mounting of usb-mass-storage devices are already there on your system. Unless you need to mount special devices like Bluetooth filesystems or digital cameras over USB, then you may not need gnome-vfs (and it may launch automatically once you first start nautilus, I'm not sure). Note, that in the past this auto-mounting was done by GNOME or KDE-specific daemons, udev has replaced them (at least on Ubuntu, and I assume Debian).
Launching gnome-power-manager is as simple as adding "gnome-power-manager&" to whatever your startup script is. With someone that has the relevant information, these things are relatively easy. bbs.archlinux.org is a good resource too (since it seems lots of Arch users go for alternative desktop environments -- even if 'desktop environment' just consists of a window manager).