Forgot to add two things:
1) I tried to download ASM from Versiontracker and it wouldn't unpack correctly. I went directly to the developer's site:
http://asm.cocoa.vercruesse.de/
And download from the link there. Worked perfectly.
2) Monolith, what did you do to get the Trash back...
Monolith, thanks for the tip about ASM! It worked perfectly! It was just what I was looking for. Not too fancy or over-featured. I do think Frank should add an icon up in the corner though.
Nice and fast too. Some ideas are just too good to give up :)
If you're interested in killing the dock, I found one way to do it that's very safe and actually seemed to increase performance and stability a little bit. But it comes with a caveat. Once you disable the Dock it's very tricky switching between any open Apps, but not impossible. If someone were...