Hi,
I actually put all my frequently use applications on the Taskbar (and desktop) like Windows 7 on my Windows 8 machine. On my Windows 8.1 machine it is a bit easier because you can tweak it to use desktop like Windows 7 w/o using other product/software. Now back to Windows 8, I'm using the following product/software and I can put all I need on the Taskbar:
http://www.classicshell.net/
Hope this helps.