Thing is, taking the "going through doorways before your dog" thing as an example - chances are, if you start making a point of making your dog wait for you to go first, especially if you teach using treats or praise, then the dog WILL start taking more notice of you, become more responsive etc. But it won't be because of any "dominance" malarkey - it's just that you have become more worthy of note. More INTERESTING.

I'm not saying that some aspects of rank reduction etc don't work - simply that they aren't working because of anything to do with dominance. They work because of the training aspect.