It appears as a white rectangle on the panel, the list of languages is empty. It just looks broken. The right fix is probably the input method integration, which we didn't get done for fc3...
Yeah, basically there are two problems: firstly gimlet's available language list doesn't get initialized until a (gtk) app with iiim is run (bug 131217). Secondly, as you mention, gimlet probably shouldn't be run until iiim is actually activated... Since the first half is already covered by another bug, let's use this bug for the latter issue. :)
Something we both want to look into for FC4.
In fc4test3 the icon should no longer be blank at startup. The move to systray is still pending.