Gnome is notorious for being ugly. If the only advantage of LDM was its ability to produce a beautiful login screen, then that alone would be enough of an advantage.
The ugliness of gtk (or at least gtk2) is the biggest burden that Ubuntu is carrying, and is perhaps the really big reason of why Ubuntu is still way behind in the market.
2. Bloat is stuff that doesn't matter
Less is more. Who cares about power settings? So what if the screen dims after 10 minutes instead of 20 minutes? The truth is, no one is going to be annoyed by that, because no one leaves their computers at the login screen for that long, and even if they do, it still wouldn't matter because no one will be staring at the computer to be bothered by the display being dimmed or going off.
Design and Bloat
1. Visual design matters
Gnome is notorious for being ugly. If the only advantage of LDM was its ability to produce a beautiful login screen, then that alone would be enough of an advantage.
The ugliness of gtk (or at least gtk2) is the biggest burden that Ubuntu is carrying, and is perhaps the really big reason of why Ubuntu is still way behind in the market.
2. Bloat is stuff that doesn't matter
Less is more. Who cares about power settings? So what if the screen dims after 10 minutes instead of 20 minutes? The truth is, no one is going to be annoyed by that, because no one leaves their computers at the login screen for that long, and even if they do, it still wouldn't matter because no one will be staring at the computer to be bothered by the display being dimmed or going off.
It just doesn't matter
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch05_It_Just_Doesnt_Matter.php
And if it doesn't matter, it's bloat.