I've thought about a refracta-light release, and I think the jessie-sysv with openbox was somewhat in that direction. I kinda like that openbox build, and if xfce moves toward gnome3 in its design, then I might switch over.
I've also thought about switching over to qt apps instead of gtk. I haven't checked lately, but wasn't lxde switching to qt? Oh, let me google that for me... lxqt.org exists. Can't say I know anything more about it or if it would fit our needs.
Next version of refracta might be a skeleton installation with the snapshot/install tools, a few tweaks (like inputrc, kernel.sysrq, runlevel 3, etc.) and package lists of "This is what we used to put into refracta..."
A do-it-yourself kit. I think I've been threatening that for over a year. Lemme finish the xfce build first.