if there's a dock why even bother having applications on the desktop
Because currently running applications are what we're used to seeing on the taskbar, which is our 'dock'.
Not like it's hard to get to the desktop.
On XP/Vista, you can right click the taskbar and click "show desktop", on windows 7, there's a button on the very right to show it.
I'd rather have a grid of not only programs, but also files ready to access over a huge lineup of icons at the bottom of my screen. But I guess it's because I multi-task, which Apple hates.
Only my most commonly used programs are pinned to the taskbar (aka docking).
Like internet browser, steam, and MSN.