>Bruce, is there any reason why (if you don't plan to dock it) one cannot use an always-on-top, desktop, floating window of pushbuttons to simulate the function of a toolbar? Anyone ever fiddled with this idea?

Interesting...now that you mention it, I have a music app that may do this. It has a genuine dockable toolbar, and clicking on a couple of the buttons bring up other *apparent* but non-dockable "toolbars." They're sort of like artist's palettes, for specific editing work. It's kind of non-standard, but once you get used to it, it's not that bad...