This isn't much help but I recently had a problem like this too.  I
couldn't get the Gnome panel to run as a certain user.  Even after
deleting all the files in ~ it still didn't work.  I finally had to
create a new user and delete the old user to get the panel back.
Any body have an idea why that might have happened?
Brady

> > 
> I've lost the ability to use the theme manager in the Gnome control
> center, and the default font that gnome applets use has shrunk.
> 
> It's not a system-wide problem, as when I log in as a backup user, I
> can do both, but clearly I've managed to munge the gnome
> configuration in my ~/ directory.
> 
> The obvious thing to do was to delete all the .gnome* directories in
> ~/, and I did that, but it didn't solve the problem, nor did deleting
> the ~/.sawfish directory.
> 
> What else do I have to delete to reset it to default values?  
> -- 
> -- 
> -------------------------------------
> There's a widow in sleepy Chester
>   Who weeps for her only son;
> There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
>   A grave that the Burmans shun,
> And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
>   Who tells how the work was done.
> -------------------------------------
> 
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