I use the empty dock too - well, nearly. I have emacs, terminal and browser on there permanently, for quick access to my 3 most-used programs. For quick access to everything else, I've got a shortcut to the Applications folder too. (Sort by Name, Display as Stack, View Content as Automatic.) To reduce clutter, you could alternatively make yourself a ~Applications folder with a reduced set of shortcuts in it, and add a shortcut to that instead.

I'm certain OS X was set up this way when I first got my computer, but I've used some people's Macs and they don't have it. So... maybe it wasn't? But anyway, default or not, it works well.