For any of you that are not using Wisbar or any of its variants, the very nicely priced (i.e. free although donations are welcomed) VijayTogglebar Alpha allows removal or shrinking of the upper and/or lower bars without removing the ability to use the buttons on them. Very useful for custom screen setups. I can't seem to find it on the official website, but have uploaded a copy with instructions.
Keep in mind that it needs the registry edited after the first run to change the size of the upper and lower bars. A soft reset removes the changes. If you like the settings, copy the exe file to your windows/startup folder and it will change the bars after a soft reset to the settings in the registry.
http://www.vijay555.com/?Vijay555