I can add paging for those categories. How would we determine "Essentials"? Based on downloads and ratings?
Just click on the 'XXX applications' link on the downloads frontpage, this links to http://maemo.org/downloads/list/OS2008/all for example. Clicking on 'Fresh' and 'Popular will give you a list of the top 25 items. (Paging would be a good idea to show more)