I understand things better now, I guess. From a programmer's point of 
view the active application and the application in the foreground can 
be two different things. The first actually has focus for mouse and 
keyboard events (=> and usually also shows its name in the screen's 
titlebar) and the latter is just the one that appears to be in front 
of all other windows, but doesn't necessarily also have the focus for 
mouse and keyboard events ;-)

However, you can do what you're looking for (or: almost .. not yet .. 
as in: soon ;-).

The solution is, as often, a customized menu, in which you just drag 
and drop the applications you want to start there or make them 
active, if they are already running.

Only problem with RC1 is that it will rather browse the application's 
bundle instead of launching the app. This is fixed in RC2.

Until then, although not equally simple, is to drag and drop the 
Behaviours of the applications into the top level of a customized menu.

Best regards, 
Felix