I could ask one more time, just to deepen the learning experience.

Seriously, I noticed the same thing this morning, after I made 'task-lxde' via Synaptic on my Gnome box.
Neal, will you fix it, so that it is working whatever way we go?

Performancewise, I didn't notice a great different between LXDE and Gnome, because my machine is quite fast already. However, LXDE is much faster launching for the first time than PCLOS Gnome.
Your LXDE looks great, Neal. Maybe I'll make a fresh start with it.