Well u know me i had to try and customize the otherwise stubborn unity environment!!
I came across this wonderful little app called Drawers that i used a lot to modify the launcher:[link]
The 3 icons in the middle of the launcher are 2 drawers and the work-space switcher
I also use the drawers to create separators.All u have to do is to make new drawers and change their icon to this invisible .png:[link]
Also in order to get rid of the icon backgrounds in the launcher u have to go to ˝file system/usr/share/unity˝ and replace the existing png files with the invisible icon
Srry but i really have no idea.I posted this screen a while ago and i don`t even use ubuntu currently.But i can tell u the way i did is is just to make sure i back-up the folders and then just experiment the hell out of it.It took me about 30 min and i had it all done.There is some logic to the names given to each png file so u can immediately figure out what png is for.Good luck!
Thx a lot for the comments!!As for the icon what icon do u mean?Most of the icons related to the launcher are located in file system/usr/share/unity.Just browse around ull find them eventually thats how i did it too.Btw please notice that in order to change the work-space switcher icon apart from replacing the icon u also need to update the cache for the icon theme!Otherwise even though u change the icon it will still show the old one.It took me a while to figure that one out oh boy!