I have found a workaround so I don't have to boot Gnome then Fluxbox. To access the Gnome network panel icon from Fluxbox, add
Code:
nm-applet &
to ~/.fluxbox/startup - that will show up the network icon in the Fluxbox slit when you reboot fluxbox, allowing it to be used from there. Or you can manually start it by typing nm-applet in a shell.

This doesn't solve the problem of it not connecting automatically on boot, it would be nice to get that working.