The placebos are for "that time of the month" so that it helps them remember to take the pill every day and not 3 weeks on 1 week off. kind of thing. At least thats what my wife says.
I am a Network Administrator and set up a test network to test this out. It works like it says. It does cause some lag on the computers which is expected.
I wouldnt really say that is a major component of LauncherPro. I have had launcherPro Plus ever since I got my Droid 2 and I never actually new that widget was there...