...even though XFCE does nothing for me...

I am not sure if i understand it correct.
You mean: in general i don't like it.
Or you mean: i am not able to use it in a productive way
?
Second i would not understand. I open apps and do things. Thats all i do. Hence i need a menu, a command-prompt and some desktops, and that is all i need. I think. not sure. I barely use filemanagers or panels, which might be rather unusual. Again: not sure.
What i did never understand is why people try to avoid gnome-apps. I used e17 and tried to avoid them. That was a lot of work, and never really worked. Then i used gnome-core and e17 on top of it, which worked good. Now i use xfce and i think i use quite a lot of gnome apps.
Probably it does make sense to avoid them, as so many try it, and i am the one who does not understand it.
a second panel is odd, but, like said, i already am lost if there is one.