Since gnome-panel 2.9.2, the gnome-panel use the /apps/panel gconf directory to store its settings. The settings that were previously stored in /apps/panel/profiles will be automatically migrated. Since gnome-panel 2.9.2 also, the panel depends on gnome-menus and we should finally enjoy the freekdestop.org Desktop Menu Specification. If you don't see any items in the menus, then you probably forgot to set $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS to $(sysconfdir)/xdg
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release.
This release is available at
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gnome-panel/2.9/gnome-panel-2.9.92.tar.bz2
If you want to contribute to gnome-panel, go, no, run to http://live.gnome.org/GnomePanel