I use Stacks the same way I use Windows quick launch, by placing shortcuts (or in Apple's case: aliases) for my most important programs there. I would never want an Applications stack that would show every application in that particular folder. I only use 7 of the 30 programs in there.
It only takes a few mintes to create a folder and place aliases in it for the programs you want. With all the time people have wasted ranting about it here, they could've already had a perfectly working stack of shortcuts for their programs created.
Note: The Address Book is not one of the programs I ever use.
You're misunderstanding the purpose of stacks and nested dock folder lists. The 7 programs you use out of the 30 that you have on your computer are put in the dock directly for easiest access. There's no point in making a stack of your 7 most frequently used apps, they should already be in your dock. Speaking just in terms of app launching, the purpose of nested folder pop up lists is specifically to easily get to the apps that you use
INfrequently and also to browse applications by category. (documents and other uses are a whole other ball of wax that you lose functionality over by only having stacks instead)
For instance, I use disk utility once in a while, but not too frequently. So it doesn't belong in my dock. To launch it from a nested dock list, all I have to do is click the docked applications folder, hit the letter d, then hit enter.
But more importantly, on my main computer I have a ton of apps, which are all grouped into 5 folders inside my applications folder (utilities, business, media, audio, internet). There are lots of times when rather than just wanting to launch a specific application, I want to look over the list of possible applications I have in that category to determine which is the best tools for the job.
Let's say I downloaded a file off the net, but it's in some weirdly compressed format that my default program isn't liking. So I click the docked applications folder, hit the letter i (for internet) enter, and immediately I'm looking at the list of all my internet programs. So I look at all the apps in that folder and I say, "Oh right, I have that program TheUNarchiver, I bet that'll work!" So I hit the letter t then enter and my app launches.
Now with stacks that functionality is now totally gone! The only option now is to go through a finder window, which would've involved opening up at least one window, probably spawning a 2nd window as well, which cluters up the screen and would've involved a lot of extra clicks and / or holding down keyboard modifier clicks, etc. It's just a much worse way to do it.
And this is only in regards to app launching! There are a zillion other uses of nested dock pop up folder lists too! Surfing through all your categorized documents, quickly scanning through any folder in your hard drive with just the arrow keys and not spawning a single window! etc. etc. etc.
Stacks simply are not a replacement for the major functionality that was removed.
