To be honest, some of these are exactly the reason why I would keep the taskbar to the left - UI elements such as scrollbars or caption buttons are much faster to access with mouse, when they're glued to the edge/corner of the screen, because you can just "throw" your mouse cursor instead of having to aim for a 20x20px target. Having your taskbar to the right takes away that feature
Part of Fitt's Law. The corners of the screen infinitely large so they are easiest to target. As you said, just "throw" your mouse. The edges of the screen are infinitely long (1 dimension) but you still need to target the X range. Still easy to target.
UX designers use to study this stuff and apply it. Now they unwittingly undo all of these thoughtful experiences with their cosmetic changes.
