Some programs, like screenlets and gnome do, offer functionality to ubuntu that is at par with or even better than Windows and OSX. I understand that there is no room for these extra features on the cd, but if the computer had a working internet connection, it could download such apps. This should be OPTIONAL! A dialog should come up and say something like "Would you like to install some extra features?" and then have a checklist of these kind of apps. That way, ubuntu could advertise these extra features that no other OS has installed by default!
If anyone has other suggestions for such kind of features, then please post them in the comments.
Remember this is completely OPTIONAL!!!! Don't vote this down because you don't want the extra apps, because they would NOT come installed by default!
In case you either do not want to or cannot do the download during the install, then having an icon on the desktop would be handy to get direct to the download page.
Also a link to facilities like this one would be handy on the Ubuntu website - maybe in Help - customising and tweaking your system for comfort.
gnome-do is pretty-much an incomplete program at the moment (install from the repo and you'll see what I mean), and I'm guessing that screenlets requires configuration, possibly intensive configuration. Just using those as an example, neither things are good for inclusion on the starting stable desktop.
The apps need to become stable and also simple to configure for optimal use, and only -then- should they be included in the OS install, not before.
As for a option or link during install, the less configuration during install, the better! Install should be streamlined and simple.
Even putting a link on the desktop doesn't make sense, because it implies that we should somehow favor screenlets and gnome-do, say, over the 10,000 other apps available from synaptics and from the application install software.
And the application installer itself is only a click away at the bottom of the applications menu.
P.S. Don't get me wrong, more and better workflow software becoming part of ubuntu and especially gnome (kubuntu already uses katapult, so gnome-ubuntu is behind kubuntu which is behind OS X) is very missing, and something that we should all work towards, but it should be done first by stabilizing and making easily usable the software.
P.P.S: Oh, and screenlets are similar to widgets in os X, and gnome-do is a direct duplication of quicksilver, not exactly cutting edge.