I'm afraid I can't be much help but I can say that I have had exactly the same issues. The third problem was a new "feature" introduced in OS X Lion; you may fi

I'm afraid I can't be much help but I can say that I have had exactly the same issues. The third problem was a new "feature" introduced in OS X Lion; you may find that Snow Leopard is more to your liking. For the first problem, try ctrl (or cmd) and 'w'. As for "I hope this isn't too much to ask for", when I first got a Mac I asked on a forum how to maximize a window fully (as many windows resize to the window contents rather than full screen - not necessarily a bad feature but I also wished for a 'proper' maximize). I was perfectly polite but was flamed to death and told to "go back to Windows" (even though I had come from Linux). The community can be a little.. tense.. when you ask for features that don't exist.