My new craze with the dock is to make it max size with max magnification and open 3 simpsons episodes in quicktime then put them all in the dock and watch them from there, It is so cool looking!
truth be told I really don't do a whole lot of minimizing. I find that hiding suits my needs just fine, and if i am going to go to the dock to bring something back up, i may as well just go to the program.