That's pretty much all I do with the trash, how is it irrelevant? ... actually two commands are visible in the Finder menu, and of course there are the keyboard shortcuts already mentioned (cmd+shift+del / cmd+option+shift+del).

The trash is meant to hold stuff you plan to permanently delete. On the rare occasion you need to open the trash folder, the dock seems like a fair-enough place to reach it. Despite how small your dock becomes it is still pegged to one side, you don't have to *find* the icon. The other way you can visually reach the trash folder is via Finder / menunbar / go to folder or cmd+shift+G and enter the appropriate path. You could probably create your own shortcut key action to replicate that route and show the Trash folder that way. If you need to see the trash folder as often as it sounds perhaps you should re-examine your deleting habits.