Debian Multimedia :: Mulling FVWM And Desktop Managers

I already have a pretty comfy setup, with Openbox over LXDE, but I'm curious about something: Even though I started out with LXDE, I removed the lxpanel and replaced it with Tint2, then I removed the LXDE right-click menu and replaced it with the Openbox menu. Finally, I replaced PCmanfm with Thunar, and run my wallpaper on Nitrogen. In fact, the only thing that says "LXDE" anymore is the logout menu, and if I could replace that with something sleeker that fit my theme, i would.

Question: Would it have made more sense to simply not install LXDE at all? I've heard of people who say they just run Openbox. Do they mean they have to run it on top of something like LXDE, or do they just have Openbox and nothing else? It sounds like that's what I could have done here and had virtually the same thing. Am I right?

Also, I've heard a lot about FVWM, and I'm curious as to whether it's that much better than what I have now. Is there a way to "try it out?" I don't want to replace a thing that I have here now, at least until I decided I liked FVWM better (which I don't know I will). There's very little i don't like about Openbox (absence of a volume control icon in the taskbar, for one), but I'm always into tinkering, and I like the idea of switching themes. By that I mean switching wallpaper, icon themes, window themes, conky configs, everything, all with a keystroke. I've done it with scripts in the past, but that's "doing it the hard way," and I've been on the hunt for a desktop manager that has this feature.