The Dock: superficially seems to be a part of the Finder, but ProcessViewer says otherwise.
MacOsxHints suggests making a fake ApplicationMenu by putting folders containing aliases in this, but they end up on the wrong side and need to be right-clicked to display.
1 3rd party applets for the dock
Dock "Launchers":
- Yadal: http://orane.org.free.fr/