you should try that timbaland thing and pan some shakers hard, alternating LR on 16th and 32nd notes.
generally panning kick and snare sounds a little weird. but it can be done. if you do it, you are going to make your beats sound "experimental".
sending little plinky things left and right is pretty normal though if you want to make mainstream beats.
some other thoughts:
leave an instrument in the center, but pan the reverb or other effect.
ping pong delay, or auto pans are also cool.
playing with phase and panning is dangerous ground, but usually yeilds some cool effects- like put a 2 delays on a snare, with slightly different timing, both 180 out of phase from one another. dangerous cause if people listen to the music in mono all sorts of strange things happen.