I dont think anyone is going to believe me but there is in fact a third party lockscreen that actually uses secure locking (it has pin as well as pattern). See for yourself right here, no widget support but it works great so far. widget locker is the next best (widget support but no secure lock) and both can/will disable status bar/notification tray as well as the home, back and recent apps buttons. I guess its possible to have a secure third party lockscreen?
I made one panel to hold folder shortcuts. The thing is that icons assigned to said shortcuts are cropped. I tried copying styles from the ones that are ok with no luck. Even deleted and recreated them but no luck. Is it a bug or a feature?