[brianogilvie]

This question has been addressed in a different thread. (You can search for it; I'm too short on time.) In brief: according to Ken, a standalone Quick Entry application would consume nearly as many system resources as the full OmniFocus application. For that reason, and to avoid having to develop & debug a separate application, there's no standalone Quick Entry app.

What's so distracting about the icon in the dock? You can turn off the badge if that's distracting you. Me, I want to be reminded of upcoming or overdue commitments! :-)