I take some issue with this because you're describing one method to resolve a task when there are many. You can also see notifications by just clicking on the

I take some issue with this because you're describing one method to resolve a task when there are many. You can also see notifications by just clicking on the omnipresent icon in the Finder Bar, or act on the notifications themselves by clicking them as they appear. Like, I agree that the versatility of the trackpads is a blessing and a curse - beyond a few common ones, most gestures are unintuitive and it's probably why not too many applications take use of them on non-mobile devices. But the issue isn't with Apple having hidden behaviors here, it's that one method is less visible than others which are very accessible. The issue with the Windows 8 charms was that all means of accessing them were obfuscated. You had to move to a certain corner or swipe from a certain way on trackpads that often had poor sensitivity (or conversely, were overly sensitive) and the behavior was erratic and unpredictable. It's fine to dislike aesthetics, but that doesn't make it unusable. In the case of the text buttons, I can't think of an instance off the top of my head where the text wasn't clearly marked as button with either a drop down arrow or ... or some other item.