Running Matchbox on older hardware

Hi all,

I've just compiled Matchbox on my 50MHz-486-laptop, thinking it would
make for a great operating environment there. And the window manager
indeed is, just ... desktop and dock are not _exactly_ convenient to
use.

My question: is there any way one could have a dock with WLAN
monitor/volume applet/battery monitor and a few application launchers
that doesn't take up 30% CPU on such a machine, even if it is just
sitting there?

And the second thing, dunno if it is to blame on the 8 bit colour or on
XFree 3.3.5, but for some reason the message windows (those comic-style
windows) are just, plain black.

I've tried various configurations of Matchbox, including the standalone
binary.

Best regards from Germany,
Raphael

P.S.: Matthew, I haven't forgotten about our "long-term" conversation
;-)