No! Not that I can find. It is the biggest feature failure of this release. There are already plenty of dock alternatives in the repositories. Why introduce another that is less appealing than those? But I live in hope that common sense will reign.

It seems to me that this desktop edition is only intended for laptops and tablets. The huge icons and widely spread left menu and the bottom dock all point to tablets and laptops where people with poor eye-sight on small screens need the help of these gimmicks.
Serious big screen users are not catered for unless someone includes configuration options.

I live in the hope that this will all improve. It reminds me of Ubuntu's introduction of Unity.

I'm agree with you, but if nobody asks them ...  (ask, ask and ask again!!)
indeed, this is the same similitude as unity but lot of things are better.
One thing that is cool in unity, is the HUD; it is very convenient.
I plan to go on to deepin 2014 as soon as it will be stable and usable, and me too (like you), i want this OS become the standard in terms of ergonomics and usability.
if I can help, translation, or other ...