Could I really be dealing with a Gnome problem that came up in 2007
 

Problem getting nm-applet working in Gnome
PostedL Aug 2007

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-gnome-599125/

Was this caused by a bug, that still exists in Gnome ?

My KDE works fine but Gnome and other non-KDE's have same problem.

I am about to try and implement the solution described back then, unless there is a better way.