In my experience, 2000 is slower than XP. ofcourse, this really depends on hardware and software, so everyone's experiences are different. Also, it's pointless to argue about this topic because everyone is stubborn anyway.

Litestep is designed to change the shell, aka interface, aka the way users interact with the system. A clock utility doesn't take input from a user nor give output to a user (excluding the fact that eventually, the time will be displayed. displaying time is done by another module)

There are tons of atomic clock programs that run in the tray. I used Atomic Clock (has a nuke symbol for an icon). You can have it start up with windows and it will update the time automatically. These programs are usually small enough to not hurt the system.

A module wouldn't hurt, but isn't necessary.