I've done it and it is divine! However, I've only used actual sugar, although the result doesn't taste sugary to me. If you eat regular bacon, I'd just make normal lox with sugar- it's a comparable amount of sugar spread over the side of salmon. If you're super-strict, consider using palm sugar instead (agave or honey will not give you the same textural results, I bet)

I've not tried it, but it doesn't sound too difficult.

Here in Norway we have tons of lox. We call it røktlaks. They just use salt and some spices (i have read cinnamon (:P), capers, garlic ect - could be fun to try out once you masted a plain version)for more flavor. You can just nix the sugar.

I read some Norwegian recipes, from what I get you salt them very well (coat them) and leave them to sit for 24 hours -In a fridge is ok. Next rinse with cold water - get all the salt off. Then you put in a 80F oven/fire for 14 hours on a wire rack. Obviously a burning fire helps here to give it that smoked taste. Douse the fire with small amounts of water to help generate smoke.

Also, a tip I read was to wrap the lox in brown paper, not plastic.

I tried this recipe from Gnoll's blog and it was great: Gravlax