I meant user apps. Servers don't need unified storage that much and they don't belong to user accounts really. Ok, so skipping server stuff (and remembering that the question is "examples of what it cannot do"):
Skype is not really a part of the linux environment... they do what they want and they would probably prefer to just port the windows solution, but I don't see anything they could not store in gconf.
Sound settings - gnome-volume-control uses it, same with gnome-sound-recorder, gstreamer too - sound server itself is system-wide, so it doesn't have place in gconf.
Vim uses scripts, same as Irssi, so fair enough it cannot be done
Firefox could use gconf - it just needs a key=value set.
Apache, postfix, wifi, sound daemons - those are servers/system-wide providers... From the project site: "GConf is a system for storing application preferences. It is intended for user preferences; not configuration of something like Apache, or arbitrary data storage." But I think I lost the main point somewhere - here it is: of course you cannot do everything in gconf (scripts), but most of the app preferences fit this model perfectly - and many of them do use gconf - just check the list of apps using it on your system.
Skype is not really a part of the linux environment... they do what they want and they would probably prefer to just port the windows solution, but I don't see anything they could not store in gconf.
Sound settings - gnome-volume-control uses it, same with gnome-sound-recorder, gstreamer too - sound server itself is system-wide, so it doesn't have place in gconf.
Vim uses scripts, same as Irssi, so fair enough it cannot be done
Firefox could use gconf - it just needs a key=value set.
Apache, postfix, wifi, sound daemons - those are servers/system-wide providers... From the project site: "GConf is a system for storing application preferences. It is intended for user preferences; not configuration of something like Apache, or arbitrary data storage." But I think I lost the main point somewhere - here it is: of course you cannot do everything in gconf (scripts), but most of the app preferences fit this model perfectly - and many of them do use gconf - just check the list of apps using it on your system.