Currently on mouse over it just shows information tooltip. Such option would complement window highlight feature from task switcher, just rollover mouse and get windows shown and menu shown.
Why?
Idea is to treat kicker menu as "sub menu" or same as "app preview". You click on item inside menu to activate it (app preview or icon to switch or app icon inside menu to launch), but you don't need to click to activate menu itself. You will get one click less. My secondary method to speed up workflow is to use meta to activate menu *before* I move cursor. It saves me click and mouse travel, but when you only use mouse (like when you browse) it is for sure handy.
You can assign a screen edge to trigger the application launcher. Then you just bump the mouse against the corner and it'll open.
Thanks for responding. I'm not particularly convinced, we'd have to have an activation delay, because even with tooltips experience has shown people hit them too often. At which point there's no way you'd save any time with this feature. Plus there's the other suggestion Kai added.
@Kai: it indeed works nice, haven't noticed that. But you have to move mouse further away deliberately. That solves problem with "keyless" quick menu activation. @David: It will also eliminate clicking on tooltip which I caught myself couple of times. I move cursor on top of button, get tooltip. Tooltip shows, so I move cursor over tooltip and click instead of clicking menu button. Try yourself. If this solution would need delay and not speed up work it would nicely eliminate such accidental clicks. But when task switcher is set not to show windows previews and highlight windows it works instantly - it's so great. As I remember this solution (without delay) is available in Cinnamon desktop, so it's possible to test.