a) Is it possible to have this functionality of Thunar/Nautilus in XFe by running some commands first, adding the partitions/devices in /etc/fstab with their UUIDs and/or installing some additional modules/plugins? I am on a minimal Debian Jessie system with standalone OpenBox, do not have any prior experience with XFE and a google search leads me to tons of posts on XFCE instead.
b) Will doing so then end up with XFE using the same, if not more system resources than what the above mentioned behemoths do?

Thanks.

This suggests yes, it is possible.

Thanks, that's great news..just tried Ctrl-M to mount one, didn't do anything apparently but let me read up on the link you provided and look at the configuration files mentioned. Will report back as soon as i've tried out everything possible. Thanks again, i'd have gone ahead installed Thunar or Nautilus if it wasn't for your "yes, we can!"

Looked at the configuration files, there was pretty much nothing i could do with them, they were all about geometry and keybindings. So i did a Google search and found this gem. Since copy/paste of the UUIDs from xterm to my text editor is not possible, ran
I think i could've accomplished this with a single command but i digress.
Long story short, followed the instructions in the above link but for one detail, added rw, to my /etc/fstab as below;
Rebooted,
Ta-Da! A poor thing but mine own. Forgive me for feeling like the cat's whiskers, i am relatively new to this kind of thing.

Edit: Have to add a couple of things; 1.) That takes care of partitions, it's one thing to add them to your /etc/fstab but it doesn't make sense to do the same for every usb device you have. And what if you have to plug in a new one. So i poked around in Synaptic after typing "mount" in the search field and found just the thing, pmount. Now i can do a for any usb device i plug in and it will show in /media. Advanced users are requested to add the howto on how to safely remove the device because upmount doesn't do it.
2.) I found that Midnight Commander makes even XFE seem lumbering and i can view my other partitions in it just as well. Will take a bit of learning curve for me but i might dispense with XFE too.

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Update: It gets better and better, wonder why i didn't notice this before; right under pmount there was this sweet thing called usbmount. Now i don't have to run "pmount sdb1" every time i plugin a usb. Tell me again why you prefer Thunar to XFE?

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I have not made any preference known, but since you ask, I prefer Thunar because it is installed by default on my
LM17.1 Rebecca/Xfce

I thought you were quite 'mad' throwing XFE all over, all I saw was Xfce, so I gurgled it and when I found it to be a
"File Manager" I said, 'cool'. So he meant XFE after all.

Glad it worked out for you!

Haha, it all began with my quest for a configuration which used the least system resources combined with all the convenience and simplicity (hence, finally ruled out Midnight Commander here) of a full fledged Desktop Environment, further inspired by Head_On_A_Stick's minimalism (by-passing and not using a display manager and automatic login), so that i could use them all for this resource intensive application, Blender.

Thanks.