The Dock is a poor man's Start Menu / Panel. Missing major features such as a built in search, universal menu, easy window management (no, Mission Control does not count) and system options.

The Menu Bar at the top unnecessarily separates those out.

The Dock has always had a major issue of taking up a hilarious amount of vertical space in its default position. Having it vertical on the left or right side of the screen in "auto hide" mode is the most optimal configuration.