Just a quick reply to your question
I see your point, I have always used the rocker switch to do this.
It seems quicker and being right handed I always seemed to hit the taskswitcher button reaching over with my thumb.
I can understand moving either of them would be controversial to people that use them.
However, bare in mind the amount of room you need to swipe the listwidget about. Currently in portrait orientation it's difficult to swipe at the listwidget, my idea was to free this up more by relocating the icons either side.