i think you can do this, and no it doesnt require learning to skin OB just yet

however, it does require configuring OB a bit.

here is crude plan 1:
try creating a new bar, and making it contain just the quicklaunch item. now configure the quicklaunch section to have large icons (display tab, icons size).

i am not sure how to get this stuck on top of the taskbar section though. you could try docking it there, but that wont give you exactly the look in the screen shot.

anyone else know how to do this?

i will try some experiments later if i get around to it and see what i can come up with.

i had a quick scan of the OB section, and there are a couple of screen shots that may be themes with one bar on top of another one.

i dont want to mess up my OB theme on this machine, since it is well suited to my needs, and the machine is dead slow too

however i may have a play this weekend, since this is an interesting question.

i think a more eligent solution is possible. if you check out the (LARGE) screen shot of the Autumn OB theme in the OB section, it has two bars, one on top of the other.

...

i have just downloaded it. OB didnt want to tell me it was there at first, but i won in the end the interesting thing about this bar is that the start button entends across both bars.

since i am only running at 1024 i had to dock the bars to make them show up, so be warned if you try this

by the looks of it my guess is how this was done was correct, just with a couple of refinements. nice to see that it worked for you.

a most interesting concept, but it takes up to much highly valuable screen space for my tastes.