Personally, I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Launcbar. I can't live with out it. It is basically what Spotlight wants to be when it's all grown up. It's just a quick way to launch programs, search for contacts, do quick calculations, etc....
Here's a quick screen shot of what it looks like when you call up a phone number:
You can find out more here
I replaced the quick key for launching spotlight (Command-Space Bar) so that I could use it to open launch bar. Then you just type the first couple of characters of the app you want to launch, or the contact you want to look up, and hit enter once you find it. Super fast. I never use my dock for anything. It's all hands on the keyboard.