@Sodium hydroxide--that's a fair question. That's actually exactly what I did when I used to hide the dock. But now I just prefer to have it there at a glance--so, even if i'm typing or reading something on screen, it's just a flick of my eyes to see what's going on on my machine (same logic for my menu-bar monitors).
Also, no one asked, but the menubar system monitor i have going there is
atMonitor. It's one of the most specific and customizable system monitors out there--there aren't a lot of menubar based monitors that have
GPU temperature! but atMonitor does (and more). And the developers are top notch--I've emailed them twice with bugs i've found in the 6 months i've been using it, and both times they've fixed it and released an update within the week (once it was less than a full day later!). Again, I know no one asked, but I thought i'd throw a little love their way--it's the best system monitoring app i've found.