Good point. Though I guess, those were changes to Dock.app, but not to `the Dock' as UI element.
I totally agree with SWG that popup folders would be nice.

I actually like the Trash in the Dock, though I wish more apps used the Trash as a UI element -- e.g., dragging toolbar items to the Trash -- and would like the Dock to take on some more shelf-like behaviors, e.g. dropping text fragments onto it.