once you get past say six programs, it starts taking way longer to alt-tab than it's worth
At that point I just start closing programs. I don't often encounter situations where I have more than six programs open at once and am actually using all of them.
...which means taking a good 300% more time to maximize a window
I disagree, I feel that the time it takes me to center my mouse over a tiny little button and click it is about the same amount of time as it takes me to quickly swipe the pointer up the screen dragging the titlebar to the top. In addition, if you use multiple monitors, this feature rocks - you can drag a maximized window from one monitor to another and keep it maximized. This may sound trivial, however if you used multiple monitors in XP you would know how annoying it is to have to minimize or restore a window, then drag, then maximize. In addition, I rarely actually use the mouse for these functions (indeed I rarely use these functions), I use meta+up for maximize, meta+left/right for side-snap, and meta+down for minimize. I guarantee that's quicker than doing anything with a mouse.
I also never, ever minimize, I just keep everything maximized and alt-tab. I can't stand using an application that's not taking up the whole screen. If I really need to look at two things at once I use the Win7 side-snap. That's what the Gnome designers are saying, as well: just don't minimize, ever, because what's the real point? And with maximize - are you really claiming that double-clicking anywhere in the titlebar is 3x slower than getting your pointer into the maximize button? In the end It still does just come down to personal preference, though; if you have two programmers watch each other use a computer for 30 minutes, I guarantee each of them will walk away thinking that the other wastes time in navigation.
Imagine a PC dealership trying to enforce such harsh software usability limitations like "never ever install any other software than the one you got it with, or forget the warranty"
Fair enough, but If I then imagine a car dealership saying this, it makes pretty good sense that installing custom software on my car would void its warranty. I'm not saying that cell phones are like cars, but I am saying that cell phones are different than PCs. If you brick your phone because you accidentally overwrote the bootloader, they should not be held responsible, you should. You can always say "well, you can always put the bootloader back on if you know what you're doing," but the truth is that a lot of people don't, and the manufacturer shouldn't have to shell out for their mistakes. That being said, I do feel that locking people in with certain software options is really, really crappy. You should be physically able to install whatever software you want in an ideal world.
Great, now I'm sad and pinin' for the fjords!
PININ' FOR THE FJORDS!?
You will have many recoverable tape errors.