Can Tiles be extended to do this?

I purchased Object Desktop and it came with Tiles. Which I thought, to start with, would do what I wanted. But it won't. Let me explain.

I run a lot of different software and I need somewhere I can just click and the software starts up. I don't want to go into the start menu and find it each time - I just want it on the screen waiting for me. I had previously been using a gadget in a sidebar but was having issues on a new laptop. But that is what I am after - something that sits at the side of the my desktop and runs over  the top of all my software (reducing the effective screen size). Tiles does that bit OK.

Tiles seemed to do what I want except for a few things:

1. The icon sizes are far too large.Even in Tiny mode. I want about 20-30 little icons at the side taking up just enough room for me to click, but no more.
2. If I start a program and then click the same icon again, it will not start a second instance, but just brings the first instance to the foreground. I want a second instance to start up.
3. I cannot have rows and columns of icons
4. When a program is active such as FireFox, it displays all the tabs as separate icons.

I guess what I am after is a program launcher, which is what I thought Tiles was. What it appears to be is a task bar at the side of the screen. I've already got one of those at the bottom.

I thought Fences might do what I want, but once again, the icons are too big. In addition, any running program goes over the top of them, so I 'lose' them until I display the desktop.

So, can Tiles be modified to do this or can you suggest some other way? At present I have all my icons in a 'quick launch' toolbar at the bottom of the screen in the task bar, but it's not very elegant.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Alan