I feel the same way about maximize. If you complain about it, someone who defends every Apple decision will say "why would you want to do that? It doesn't make sense."
If you'd rather not use a proprietary program from a company that makes keyloggers, check out WrongZoom (downloadable link in the readme): http://github.com/spicyj/wrongzoom/tree/master
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600389
Anyway, I downloaded something called Right Zoom that changes the behavior of the zoom button (which I find practically useless).
http://www.blazingtools.com/downloads.html