I am also interested in getting E17 running on an N810. I've heard it's faster than XFCE and really light. I am old to linux, but new to IT's so I'm willing to give this a shot... It think the best approach is to install NIT-debian and then to find a E17 repo. I haven't used E17 in a couple of years because I tend to prefer the more stable/complete gnome, but E17 may be just perfect for this: Fast, light, eye-candy, useful.

Just an aside, but it really seems to be setup well already for small screens... The bad part about E17 the last time I used it was that it took a lot of time to configure. I imagine it's going to be doable, it's just going to take time for setting it up to look good and function well.