@moto
Even if you did succeed in removing the border around the dock area, you'd still be left with that ugly bar to the left/on top.
My suggestion would be to leave the border be, but apply some subtle effects to the background of the icon area. This was something I was going to try on my system, but I haven't got around to it. If you want you could email me your backdrop and a screengrab and I could make you something that looks cool, but tasteful.
PM me if you're interested.
