An add-on to my last comment - would love to see a feature where you can check a box to Never have the desktop itself dim  and also perhaps a separate slide that controls the dimming for the desktop. (I am encountering other issues when working with the desktop and folders, dragging/droppping - I believe this was mentioned before)

I am going to make the same request Diamond12a made. Dimming inactive applications is really a good idea but dimming the desktop makes all the "on desktop" apps likes stickies, gadgets unusable.

Unfortunately it is unlikely we will be changing how the window dimming feature works as excluding windows from it would produce poor results with any unusually shaped windows as well as increasing the memory usage by a significant amount.

Having said that we may be able to detect apps stuck to the desktop so when they have focus they do not make the rest of the desktop dim.  But if a window above them is active they will be dimmed along with the rest of the desktop as they are below the active window.