Task Panes are still used in Office - more in Word than Excel, but apparently Microsoft sees some benefit to them. In MicroStation, things like the Properties (Element Info) and Level Display dialog boxes lend themselves to being docked like a task pane. And the benefit of a task pane is that it can be set to hide and flyout and even when open, leave a fair amount of screen real estate. Our drawings are now very close to appearing the same shape as our screens. The ribbon shortens the screen in a way that encroaches on that drawing to view ratio and the ribbon controls do not support automatic flyout and hide (at least they did not the last time I checked).
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