I'm a mostly Windows user, but when I use a Mac the dock kind of frustrates me. It's a mostly good idea, but some of the implementation seems off to me. The biggest thing is I wish it was anchored to a corner of the screen instead of the middle. It would be nice to have the quick launch icons always in the same position on the screen, the dock would only need to expand in one direction for open applications. As it is now things kind of move around a little too much for my tastes.
I really like how I have my taskbar set up in XP. Next to the Start button I have the quick launch area. I have three small icons in this area a desktop icon, a browser icon, and a list that contains about seven of my most used applications. I really like the list feature because it doesn't take up any screen space, and this list is small enough to scroll through rather quickly. I wish Apple would take some of what I consider the best features of the taskbar and integrate them into future versions of the dock. JMHO
-Dylan