I really like the dock,
Especially this bouncing icon when it has
something to say: I'm always working without sound at the office and I find it a good way to advertise of an event, when you're doing something, or when you got 15 apps onpen in atime and the same ammount of windows.
I always have tasks running in background, with this boucing thing, I always know when they're finished.
In the past, I always got Dragthing running, to have everything just there on the screen, now i'm Using the Dock. My only complain about this is that I want to put some separators in my dock, this would be cool !
... I Like the Dock, like somebody says, here I think, with the dock and the apple menu, you do not have to touch your disks anymore...