As of Lion, you sign in with an Apple ID. That is not iTunes, but iTunes also uses this ID. You do not need a credit card number to update your OS. That is only required for purchases in the App Store. If the update involves a kernel, kernel extension, Aqua/Quartz or other core component modification then yes, you will need to reboot. You probably have to reboot for updates more often than in a modern Unix due to the GUI integration, but generally less so than in Windows.

It sounds like you are using the mini bluetooth wireless keyboard. You would probably prefer the full-size keyboard which has many of the keys you are concerned about. The behavior of the home and end keys is the way they have historically always worked in computing. It was Microsoft that changed the behavior in Windows and got people used to the different behavior. It was also Microsoft that changed the behavior of the Control key from its original usage of sending actual control codes. Apple retains the original behavior and introduced the Command key which works like the Microsoft Control Key. To move to the Beginning / End of a line, use Command+Left or Right Arrow. As for Alt, this is actually more correctly referred to as the Meta key. The Option key on the Apple keyboard provides this functionality, and it's is conveniently in the exact same location as the Alt key on PC keyboards. Of course, if you hate the Apple keyboard so much, there's nothing stopping you from using any USB or Bluetooth keyboard with the Mac, they're all supported and OS X understands how to map PC-specific keys to their OS X equivalents.

As of Mountain Lion you can resize any resizable windows from any corner. If you're getting a resize cursor than you should be able to resize it. I'm not sure why you're having this experience but if you are indeed experiencing a bug related to this it might be worth bringing up to Apple Support so that they can be made aware of it.

When you full screen an application, a virtual desktop for that application window is created on the fly. Your other windows are still there on their original desktop. You can still Opt-Tab back to them or use Mission Control/Expose. I don't understand what the issue is here?

* Is this green control box maximize or what!? It seems like sometimes it wants to maximize height and width, and other times it will only maximize height. Be consistant. No, actually, always maximize both!

This is another one those scenarios where you have to unlearn Microsoft paradigms. The green button is not a maximize button, and no one ever said it was. It is referred to as the "zoom" button. It's function is to optimize the window size appropriate to the document it contains. For example, a word processor window would zoom such that a full page-size is visible. A web browser would attempt to zoom to be proportionate to the full width of the web site. There is no "maximize" button in OS X.

Agreed.

It's not perfect or intuitive, but Command+Shift+G will bring up a dialogue to allow you to type in a path.

If you don't like the Apple Magic Mouse, you aren't forced to use it. Any mouse will be recognized and work just fine in OS X. You don't need a scroll wheel as scrolling is done via the touch surface. It's omnidirectional and works great. Personally, I really enjoy using the Magic Mouse, but I agree that it's not conducive to gaming. For one, due to its single-surface design it is not possible to perform a simultaneous right and left click which some games use. For this reason I keep a second traditional Microsoft mouse around for gaming.

I have to completely disagree with you here. Multi-monitor support is an area that OS X really shines. Windows in a multi-monitor scenario on the other hand is a total frustrating experience. For example, in Windows: * Child windows open up on random monitors seperate from their parent. * God forbid you boot up without one of the monitors (such as moving a laptop from a dock scenario). You may end up with an application that insists on opening up on a phantom display, where the only fix is to alt+spacebar+m and move it with the arrow keys (guessing which direction it might be and hope you get it right). Also, since the introduction of the Windows 8 disaster, there's been much discussion as to why a touch-screen on a laptop is generally considered a bad idea. OS X is not designed around a touch interface. That's why Apple created iOS. If this is something you want in a portable computer, perhaps Windows 8 is more to your liking. However, don't mix personal-preference with "This OS sucks." You seem to be doing that a lot in this rant of yours.

No this is not FreeBSD. It's OS X. The userland core it is built upon is its own BSD variant called Darwin. It has roots in Mach, FreeBSD and even NeXTStep/OpenStep. As far as conventions go, care to elaborate? What exactly about the file system layout do you take issue with?

Game companies seem to be alergic to hiring OpenGL developers and are married to Microsoft/DirectX. To be fair, Apple isn't known for their willingness to work with Game developers. Efforts such as Steam for Mac have gone a long way in closing that gaming gap, but there's still a long road ahead. In the meantime you always have the option of bootcamp. You don't lose anything by going with Mac. You can always install a Windows partition and enjoy all of the software available to PCs, and boot back into OS X when you're done with your gaming.

Nice troll. Here's the real text: (bolded emphasis mine)

A. Preinstalled and Single-Copy Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store or under a volume license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are granted a limited, nonexclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple branded computer at any one time. For example, these single-copy license terms apply to you if you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware.
B. Mac App Store License. If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as permitted by the Mac App Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/ itunes/ww/) (“Usage Rules”), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license: (i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control;
(ii) If you are a commercial enterprise or educational institution, to download, install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software for use either: (a) by a single individual on each of the Mac Computer(s) that you own or control, or (b) by multiple individuals on a single shared Mac Computer that you own or control. For example, a single employee may use the Apple Software on both the employee’s desktop Mac Computer and laptop Mac Computer, or multiple students may serially use the Apple Software on a single Mac Computer located at a resource center or library; and
(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use.
The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services.

Source: http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1082.pdf

Indeed. It appears that's exactly what they plan on doing.

"BARCELONA—AT&T Inc. said it is considering a way to let the providers of mobile services pay for the cost of the data traffic associated with things like streaming movies and smartphone applications, opening up a new round of debate over the rules of the mobile Internet. "

AT&T May Try Billing App Makers

Supposedly they are: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/its-official-steam-coming-linux

Imagine if, along with bundling Opera with the Wii, Nintendo FORBID anyone from running any other browser on their OS at all, and required EVERY game to be approved by Nintendo before it could be allowed to run. Apple's doing EXACTLY THAT.

Funny how nobody complains about game consoles, network appliances, or any other propriety electronic device being a closed platform. It's only evil if Apple does it?

In ksh93, you can print unicode characters with printf:

$ echo ${.sh.version}
Version JMP 93t+ 2010-03-05
$ whence -v printf
printf is a shell builtin
$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 printf "\u[00AE]\n"
®

For Unix shell scripting purposes (and I know the Slashdot crowd may scoff at this but), nothing compares to KSH. It has many features not found in Bash and most other shells, such as coprocesses, associative arrays, compound variables, floating point arithmetic, discipline functions, etc. It's also fully extensible and posix compliant. For GUI scripts, almost all commercial Unixes include dtksh, which provides access to much of the Xt and Motif APIs. A TK version of ksh also exists.

KSH just gets a bad rep because Unix vendors insist on only supplying an ancient version (ksh88), or its clone (pdksh) that lacks all of the functionality and behavior of the original. As a result most people have never used a modern version of the shell.

Of there's a right tool for the right job. Depending on the nature of the task one might also want to consider perl, python, or some other scripting technology.