I think it's a great idea to try and get people to move from Windows to linux (any distro), but all the howtos (including this one) get a bit over-exuberant on the apps being installed.  I notice you have included Thunderbird and Evolution.  Surely it would have been better to just have one mail client ?  The same applies to CD/DVD burning packages.  And how many media players can you use at once.  I think this is indicative of the struggle to move people from Windows.  Pick a player and make sure it can use all the appropriate codecs to allow the user to play anything they like.

Sure a choice of mail clients is nice, but if a user sets them both up and uses them both to retrieve mail, they will end up with (approx) half their mail in each. 

Maybe I'll put my typing where my mouth is and produce a howto to replicate the out-of-the-box Windows experience.