choosing typical desktop applications

[Сергей]

Preload greatly reduces startup time; it's included in Ubuntu repos
and it's quite stable and well-tested, I think you can include it by
default.

I'm afraid that you won't be able to ship VLC due to legal
restrictions of libavcodec:
"libavcodec cannot be shipped on CDs (c.f. Ubuntu technical board
resolution 2007-01-02)." (source:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu-seeds/ubuntu.precise/view/head:/ship-live)

The best thing you can ship is GStreamer.

--
shnatsel