If you hide the dock it works fine to fill the screen without hitting the "full screen" button, unless there is some control at the absolute bottom of the windo

If you hide the dock it works fine to fill the screen without hitting the "full screen" button, unless there is some control at the absolute bottom of the window that you regularly need to access. Putting the dock on the side has always been an option; I've had it autohiding on the right since not long after trying 10.0.