Once more, with feeling...
Frazzle:
Most of these requests are items which have been dealt with many, many times: but to surmise...
Window edge resizing: a hold over from the early days of Windows which had to assume that the user had no pointing device (aka mouse) (not to mention to try and work around patents) and hence there had to be some keyboard equivalents for even the simplest WIMP interactions. Introduces 12 control mechanics when only a single one is required. Adds clutter to the interface, reduces usable screen space, and provides marginal benefit.
Maximize button behavior: also a hold over, but this time from the Microsoft "Multiple Document Interface" (where an Application window holds all of it's documents, with any unused space between wasted) vs. the "Single Document Interface" (where each document has a window, and that's it). MDI was again a response to work around patent problems: MS has largely moved away from this following the resolution of their patent issues with Apple. The "Maximize" control changes the window between two modes: that which the user selects, and that which is most appropriate to view the contents of said window. As screen get larger and larger, the usefulness of "Maximize to Full Screen" gets less and less. Just as an aside, this technique was used to attempt to restore the FITTS concept, by moving the menu bar to where it always should have been: top of the screen.
Close window means close app: another MDI misadventure. In the MDI model, you close the app by closing the MDI. No other way to do so (except maybe Alt-F4) -- this abstraction of control from the user makes no sense, and with modern VM systems not requiring the closing of unused apps, why bother?
Laptop sleep: close the lid, the system enters sleep mode. If the battery expires (takes a few weeks with a working battery) memory is written to disk and the system will awake once power returns. What more would make sense?
More control over (anything) by UI: Not a good idea. One problem programmers/UI designers often work with is "Do it this way or that way?" with the simple answer being "Let's make a Preference for it!" -- wrong solution. Work out the best way to handle it, and save Prefs for when there really, really is no better way to do things.
Make Finder work like Explorer!: Probably not a great idea. Column view is as good as "Tree Style", but doesn't give a whole new mode to the file system, which Explorer does. Modes = bad.
I understand, you came from using Windows, this is kinda how you've been taught things work, bad as those lessons may be. But it doesn't and wouldn't make sense to replicate these UI mistakes and cludges to make people feel "at home" at the expense of a solid, simple UI that just works.
