Double press the crown my friend, you will have your dock back.I miss the dock immensely. None of the new features can replace what the dock could do.
Apple fixed a problem that didn't exist in moving control panel over to the side button & eliminating the dock.
And why do away with the dock, anyway? The dock module surely took up little coding space, already existed, and could have easily been triggered some other way. Or as suggested above, allow remapping of the side button so we can decide for ourselves.
Apple: I want my dock back!