I haven't found anything through a search, but perhaps someone else has had this problem. On my MBP (as below) the dock seems to work in terms of selecting apps to open, folders, etc., but all of a sudden the other day I have found that only the Finder will show that it is in use (through the small indicator under the icon) and apps I open don't show up in the dock. If I use a list, the dock also seems to freeze for a while and then recovers.
Has anyone seen this, and if so, does anyone have a solution to this problem? If you haven't seen it, what would you recommend? Replacing some files from a known good OS? etc? Thanks!