Brightness != color temperature. Brightness = backlight intensity; color temperature = bias towards blue or orange (as you probably know).

Maybe a visual representation will help?

A company as successful as Apple wouldn't be continuing OS X if the operating system sucks. Errors in operation are either a result of the user or a result of a program. From my computer experience, I have not been able to trace any problem to the operating system. Recently, I had LR3 lockup because CS4 had a memory error (my fault for too many programs running) when loading the photos and as a result my, and any, open LR3 catalogue corrupted until I restarted my laptop (to essentially delete any temp files that may have existed). The reason why LR3 was affected is entirely unimportant and not something you'd assume and try to falsely tie to OS X anyways.

It's not pointless. Of course, we're all ethically diverse, but I don't hate someone because of what I've heard and read - I don't draw my opinions from others of others, as I think it's a rather low level of social living.

The bold text above, I'm not getting it. I'm connected to every *available* access point at school, and I've had plenty of cases where I walked from access point to another and OS X was able to connect. Not seamlessly, but it connected to the other after searching for other available and known points.

Wow. Now, I'm mocking your "anger" here more than anything else. So, Safari or Chrome require MUCH MORE than 12 threads a piece? Since, after all, they are they most demanding thing you're asking OS X to run and the least demanding seems to be 12 Threads.

Well, that's your problem. Apparently Chrome creates 36 threads and Make (capitalized, since it's a Proper Noun in this case) requires 12 threads. As far as I understand by what I've been told by you and several others, one core can handle one thread. Hyper-threading allows two threads to run on a single core.

Now, the MBP uses an Intel Core 2 Duo. Which can either be an i5 or i7. Again, as far as I understand the i7 is the only hyper-threading capable of the series so far. So, even if you were to have an i7 in that MBP of yours, you'd only be able to manage 4 threads. So, on Windows you try running 36+ threads through a Dual Core i7 and tell me if Windows doesn't lock up.

I've never had any issues when using the back button. Besides, why use the back button when you have Column View; which is way more efficient as you can jump back 2 or 3 folders (on the small monitors) at a time, or look at the files in a folder while also viewing the folders/files in that folders parent folder (/Parent/Folder/ & /Parent/, respectively)

Have you installed any kernel extensions? The only times in a decade of using OS X that I've had it hard freeze was with third party kexts.

Go whine to Adobe, the same thing happens in Linux.

a. I've kept an OS X computer at 100% CPU utilization for 4 days straight (with 16 threads in a single program traversing a 12GB graph datastructure) and Finder was still useable.

what are you ranting about? The back button does EXACTLY what it claims to do: it goes back a directory - not up a directory unless the last directory you were in was the parent.

It never does for me. What usually happens is this. I'll resume the laptop, realize a forgot to turn on wifi tethering on my phone, and then log in to OS X. OS X will then helpfully prevent a tiny dialog that asks what AP I want to connect to. I'll see the AP show up in the list, but the system doesn't connect to it automatically. If I dismiss the dialog and click on the wifi icon, again, I'll see it in the list, but the system doesn't automatically connect. Both Ubuntu and Windows will, I have no idea why OS X doesn't.

Also, one of the most important jobs of an OS is to handle threads and to intelligently switch between them. Neither Linux nor Windows has *ANY* problems with 36+ threads. Hell, right now Windows is managing 929 threads across 75 processes, but the system is idle (0% CPU usage) and perfectly responsive.

No, it is 100% Apple's fault that the cooling system is inadequate. It was Apple's decision to put hardware that generates a lot of heat into a case that couldn't even handle an Intel Atom. It was then 100% Apple's decision to make the case into a giant heat sink - a heat sink that will easily get to 100F+

Was there supposed to be a "b."?

Not always. I'm not sure why, but Finder always seems to get confused and completely screws up the history. So crap like this happens:

a. go to folder 1
b. go to folder 2
c. go to folder 3
d. hit back
e. end up folder 1 (or some other random folder in my history)

It is the most annoying thing ever.

Well, second most annoying thing. The most annoying is that hitting enter on a selected item renames it. I *hate* that. I've gotten so used to rapidly navigating folders by typing the folder name and hitting enter. The first part works in Finder. The second starts renaming the file. wtf? Why the hell does "enter" mean "rename"?

Go to Network Preferences, click the "Advanced" button for AirPort, and make sure "Remember networks this computer has joined" is checked (and that your phone is in the list of preferred networks).

165F for example. Doesn't really bother me, since most of the laptops I've used that have semi-reasonable graphics cards get hot like that, and I just keep it off my lap and let the aluminum do its job dissipating heat. Have you considered switching to low power graphics mode? That keeps things at a reasonable temperature when you're not gaming/CADing/whatever and aren't using the CPU full bore.

Because people who are used to the Finder would poop bricks if it didn't mean that. Command-o, or switch to column view and use the right arrow.

Seriously though, the next person who tries to tell me that OS X "just works" or is "user friendly" is getting throat punched. It is neither of those, not even close.