I don't know why you're getting voted down, because I rather agree with most of this.
Maybe not issues for 10.8 though... but for point releases of Lion.
Launch Pad is completely useless, but I don't see a need to have it removed. Just don't use it.
I'm finding Mission Control grows on me, but I feel Expose was at once time a simple and elegant solution and quick to access. I'd be happy if they just let me use Expose via function keys again. I never cared for Spaces before, but Mission Control has allowed me to find them more useful.
Now... EVERYTHING you said about Lion being a resource hog is very true. A lot of people with new systems might not feel it as much, but I sure do. Sometimes Lion is painful to use. I honestly have never had as many system hangs, app crashes, or needed to force a shut down since I used Windows 98! The last update eased some of the pain, but not all.
There was nothing particularly revolutionary about Lion that should have killed all the performance gains from Snow Leopard roll over and die. Lion really was a lot of lip gloss and make up. It wasn't like they introduced tons of new under the hood technologies as previously done in OS updates that were system wide changes.
All I really truly care about with 10.8 (as I'll be on a new system by then myself) is that they get rid of that UGLY DESKTOP CALENDAR LOOK OF ICAL.
This is the really important stuff. 😉
And I don't mind the IOS mix in the desk top if they are going to bring out a touch screen iMac or MacBook soon. Until then, it is a bit unnecessary.