Comment 16 for bug 873541

The buttons have always been there and always looked out of place with the launcher always showing.
The most sensible way of dealing with it would be to have the launcher reaching the top of the screen and the top panel beginning next to the launcher.

Of course that raises the problem of things looking strange with the launcher set to autohide.
Only thing I can think of for that is to have the buttons and top panel slide across with an animation as the launcher shows.
I'm sure that would raise headaches in itself though.

I say the best solution would be to have a large dash icon in the corner, in a "pizza" or quarter circle shape with the panel and launcher growing from it, which would also put more emphasis on the dash button itself.

Of course I doubt this would ever happen so needs some sort of solution to deal with the current button placement.
It does look terribly ugly.