Many users, myself included, preferred the old application menu over the desktop menu that was implemented in version 4.6. Currently, the only way to access applications by right clicking on the desktop is through a sub-menu; this is an inconvenience for users who have no interest in desktop file management. In my opinion, the user should be given an option of which menu to use. Such an option would be trivial to implement, and would greatly increase the flexibility of the desktop (because currently, the only way to keep the old behavior is to downgrade xfdesktop to a pre-4.6 version).
This option is far from trivial. Please don't assume thing of which you have no knowledge. This is semi-planned for 4.8, depending on available time. If you don't care about desktop file management, then disable file/launcher icons and your problem goes away.
Hmm... I didn't realize that the icon setting was related to the menu. My mistake. The problem was, I had icon type set to none, and I was still getting the file management menu. But now after turning file/launcher icons on and back off again, I'm getting the application menu. This is a fresh install, so it's not the result of an old config file. I would file another bug report, but now I can't reproduce it...
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 5054 ***