In a world of widescreen monitors that are most often showing text--just look at the big gray areas on TSL at left and right--if you are going to choose one location, why on earth would you make a choice that wastes vertical real estate? Why on earth would you put something that is most often not the focus front and center?

UX at Micro$oft stands for User eXploitation. (yeah, dramatic, but it fits the acronym)

I'm pretty fond of the gnome/ubuntu design. Icons at left for common programs. Some information across the top, but the title bar of a maximized program is merged into it to save space.
[Post edited by jmanatVT at 04/12/2022 1:43PM]