That's exactly my point. Apple wove so much functionality into the Dock that it's now effectively impossible to remove it. And I may be weird, but Spaces and La

That's exactly my point. Apple wove so much functionality into the Dock that it's now effectively impossible to remove it. And I may be weird, but Spaces and Launchpad are two of the things I immediately turn off, along with Mission Control, Dashboard, Expose, etc. because all of the above consume needless RAM or just get in my way.