Well, the MacOS X dock can be pinned to the right. And recall that in NeXTSTEP, minimized window icons still populated the bottom of the screen.

As the menu, that's not surprising at all. After acquiring NeXT, Apple's job was to convert it into something palatable to Mac users, and which could also accommodate both converted Mac apps (via Carbon) and legacy apps (via Classic). And they had to move fast and decisively: the company's future depended on it. This absolutely required a horizontal menu bar.

NeXT's menu system wasn't all that great anyway: it was hard to hit. Fitt's law really is a thing. I loved the tearoff menus though.