And the brightness applet doesn't work. When I click on it the slider pops up but once I click on that, it disappears. The next time I click the brightness applet, the slider appears all the way on the far left side of the screen.
It appears the Brightness Applet can only be operated via the keyboard. Click on the applet once to highlight it and then try moving the slider with your Page Up or Page Down Arrow keys to adjust the brightness level.

Not a perfect solution but it has given me some control over the screen brightness when running on battery. I've tried this approach with success using both 2.6.32-22-generic and 2.6.34 (I installed this kernel via the instructions in Cierreics' post #110).