'Apple engineers/marketing don't have the brainpower'
Heh... well, if it's
that easy to do, can you do it? If not, does that mean you have even
less brainpower than the brainless idiots programming for Apple?
There, does that mean I'm about to be excommunicated and burned at the stake? Even being sent to Coventry would be more than I could bear!
Nah, my point was that it's just bad form to start off a query with an insult, whether it's directed at the people answering the query or some other person directly or indirectly responsible for said query.
As for some of the things you listed, Rhisiart said it best -- beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While some people may think that a certain way of doing this is asinine, others may find it the most intuitive.'
StarDock is a 3rd-party application (a "desktop enhancement" to be exact), and Macintosh users have had 3rd-party applications that do similar things ("enhance" the desktop) as far back as OS 6 -- predating Windows 95. In my mind, that means that in terms of "multiple docks" or "multiple task bars," the point is moot -- both systems, out-of-the-box, support
one dock/taskbar, yet there are free bolt-ons for either that allow you to do more. If Apple engineers are boneheads for only including one dock, then the same methodology in thinking must be applied to Windows programmers as well.
Right-clicking has been around since OS 9 (almost 10 years). While Apple didn't ship two-button mice until recently (eh, 3 years, give or take), the right-click functionality has always been there and has worked flawlessly with 3rd-party mice. The "one button" mouse argument was solved and buried a long time ago with the advent of the Mighty Mouse and the gesture-sensitive trackpads on the notebooks. I still find myself accidentally performing a two-finger click on PC notebooks and trying to scroll by swiping -- I find it quite intuitive.
Resizing from one corner only is subjective as well -- I don't know how many times on my Linux or Windows machines that I've inadvertently grabbed the side of a window when I was really trying to grab an icon next to the edge of a window. It takes some getting used to, but learning a slightly new way of doing something isn't a deal-breaker for most, and it's not difficult to get used to.
Tab/spacebar vs. arrow keys/enter is also subjective. I find it much easier and my fingers move less from the alphas on the keyboard with tab-space than they do with arrow-enter. Again, to each his own, but if Apple dropped support for tab/spacebar and replaced it with arrow/enter, it wouldn't take but 2.5 minutes to get used to the new way of doing it.
It helps to look at Apple using the 80-20 rule: they program for the majority. While there have been gripes about right-clicking and so forth, they're generally relegated to those who have used only one system in the past (Windows) and are having a tough time adjusting to new things (ie, those who don't pick up on new stuff well). They're the minority. The majority of Mac users aren't screaming at the top of their lungs for multiple docks... nor two-button mice (even though they exist!)... or window-resizing from all edges... nor arrow/enter vs. tab/space. While you may find these features absolutely insane to leave out of the operating system, these arguments only come from a small fraction of the user base.
If you want everything and the kitchen sink in an OS, Linux is the way to go -- but then again, Linux has been around longer than Mac OS X and is still struggling to be adopted. Sure,
every feature that is ever requested is somehow shoehorned into the operating system so that
every user is satisfied and can spend days customizing their operating system to their exact needs, but that's not the mantra of OS X. OS X is meant for those who just want things to work out-of-the-box, and is easy to understand and begin using withing moments of booting up the computer. It's not a "tinkerer's" operating system. It's not a "please every single user out there" operating system. It's a balance of everything, and while some people will always have a problem with the way Apple forces you into using the operating system, the ways that they force you to do things aren't that difficult to get used to. It doesn't make you a fan-boy, nor does it may you a sheep. You don't have to agree with it, but that doesn't make it unbearable or difficult to use or get used to.
At any rate, we could debate every, tiny, little gripe everyone has about OS X all day and never come to a happy medium. To each his own, as said before. But I
really, strongly suggest trying DragThing and Quicksilver on your Mac -- while this is only my opinion, those two programs together (or, hell, even apart, one at a time) changed the way I work on my Mac for the better. Quicker, faster, easier, less typing, less mousing, customizable, everything-and-then-some kind of enhancements.
Quicksilver:
http://www.blacktree.com/
DragThing:
http://www.dragthing.com/