Reported Setting to Restore Tiger Dock on Leopard
As reported on Mac Rumors, there seems to be a way in Leopard to disable the shelf-style Dock in favor of the Tiger-like window-style Dock. The tip is pretty easy:
$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
$ killAll Dock
and the Dock is back to the Tiger-style Dock. I'm not sure which I'll like more, but I had a feeling that the new "glass" style would be something that annoyed me to no end as I typically hide my dock, and when it comes up, I want it to look more like a window and less like a shelf.
Let's not forget about the defaults value that makes hidden apps visibly hidden on the dock:
$ defaults write com.apple.dock showhidden -boolean true
$ killAll Dock
I've used this one for a long time, but I'm not sure if the upgrade to Leopard is going to remove this, so I'll keep it handy just in case I have to re-apply.
The way to enable the root user on 10.5 is to open the Directory Utility in the Utilities folder under Applications. Unlock it for changes and then under the Edit menu, select Enable Root User and type in the password for the root user. No need to login as root, but it's proven itself very handy when making backup scripts, etc.