You can use Button Savior to duplicate some of the system bar buttons on a small dock.
I made an invisible back button, works nicely aside for occasionally covering some element of an interface. If that's a problem you can also set it to pop up with a swipe from the side of the screen.
I use SwipePad a lot too, a free app switcher, can also be set up to launch ADW with the effect of a home button.
What I like most is that after launching an app with it the Back button will bring you to whatever app you were using before instead that to the home screen.
What I'm missing now is some widget to keep track of notifications when the status bar is hidden, any suggestions?