I'm with you here, mostly. iCal's switch from sidebar in 10.4 to popups and floating inspectors in 10.5 is painful. On the other hand, Acorn's floating tools window is good.

2. A new window for every document makes me crazy, because I like to use tools like Witch for doc-level tab switching.

I'm not so into tabs for documents, but can't live without them in browsers.

3. The push away toward full screen apps and in-app file management is, IMO, a good thing.

And yes, and no. It depends, as with other points. I'm glad that now Mac apps are not locked into multiple windows/floating inspectors for everything, but "you have a single window and you can look only at one thing at a time, deal with it" is also not the panacea.

1. Floating inspectors: Inspectors in general are getting better and I definitely prefer when it is well integrated into the view without interrupting my flow. They have a good start; further work is needed (not sure what though)

2. I think even tabs are a mistake now. We learned a lot from iOS about how to well integrate multiple views into a seamless interface. Tabs are kind of unnecessary imho now; we need something better.

3. Full screen isn't what I think the best aspect is - we do want to be able to view different apps at the same time. Case in point: - I have this chrome tab open on the right hand side of my iMac monitor - 3 terminal windows on the left hand side - My vc pitch in PPT on my second monitor's right hand - My PPC ad management software open on the second monitor's left side.

Restricting to one screen for an app isn't the right way I think, but an in-between method is. Funnily enough, I think Windows 8 almost nailed it.

As for in-app file management: YES. iCloud, Dropbox and a myriad of other systems all working together have such potential. I can't wait.