"The window maximizing thing is probably my biggest single annoyance when using a Mac."
I can't tell which people understand the philosophy of window maximizing on the Mac and don't like it, and who finds the behavior just random, so let me explain:
The Mac UI assumes the point of maximizing a window is to see all of its content at once, so enlarging past the size at which all content is visible at once is unnecessary. This can be nice, once you understand what it's doing and are used to it. If you understand this and still don't like it, that is your prerogative, too, of course.
That does seem consistent with what I've seen, though I hadn't consciously realized it.
I still have trouble seeing how this philosophy can work for something like Word or even Firefox, where the content reorganizes itself to fit the window - I could swear Macs don't always make a window full-screen in these scenarios. And you can still move a "maximized" window, which is also annoying.
I'll keep this in mind next time and see if it helps me.
I can't tell which people understand the philosophy of window maximizing on the Mac and don't like it, and who finds the behavior just random, so let me explain:
The Mac UI assumes the point of maximizing a window is to see all of its content at once, so enlarging past the size at which all content is visible at once is unnecessary. This can be nice, once you understand what it's doing and are used to it. If you understand this and still don't like it, that is your prerogative, too, of course.