Your comments

IMO tray and clock should stay at the bottom, above the start menu, but everything else should aligned to the bottom too, above the tray (aka first opened windows is at the bottom, next one is above it and so on)

You can see how natural it feels with DisplayFusion program...

I'm pretty sure the software that creates icons is to blame. HD Sentinel does this too by attempting display icons in a specific order, instead of let user control to order.

Annoying as hell.

Is it because 7+ doesn't support it (hopefully just yet), or it can't be done period?

Thanks, but I don't think X-Mouse is capable of detecting where I'm clicking and what is it a shortcut or a folder in the quick launch.
Well, my understanding is QTTabBar has nothing to do with taskbar...

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, I'm sure QTTabBar brings a lot of other useful features for every day tasks. Will test it.
No I haven't, and it doesn't seem have anything to do with this request, is it?
As a work around you could create an empty toolbar (select an empty folder) that would give you as much space as you want by moving it around the taskbar.
There is an option to restore it after app hang. So the backbone already there.