The chances of getting the official status is minimal. Hope you don’t mind me saying that. 
So, include those apps people like, such as Synaptic. Everyone out there, who uses deb packages, use Synaptic, even PCLinuxOS with rpm. So, best give users what they want. Let UbuntuCinnamon be a remix for the moment. Let people find out about it. Good that it is published in Sourceforge, for people go there. Most known distros are there.
Match the panel colour to the wallpaper.
About Nemo, I am using 4.4.1, and that’s all I need from Mint!
In a few days, I’ll download the next release and test it out. I like people taking chances to create something. Its nice to see some excitement!