I agree, but some of the new defaults Apple introduced are really weird.
For example, why does mounting a new volume no longer bring that window to the foreground? It used to be trivial to install an App by downloading a Disk Image from a web page: Safari would automatically open it when ready and it would pop into the foreground so you could install. Now, there is no feedback at all (apart from a quick "verifying image" dialog) that the volume was ever mounted. You have to remember to switch to Finder to locate the DMG. I'm sure Apple prefers you to use the App store to install apps, but this is still a big slap in the face for the usability of removable media like USB pen drives etc.
Other things, such as the press-and-hold special characters and especially the $%#@$@ autocorrect drive me mad personally, but I can at least see how they can be beneficial to people.
The rest, disabling animations, caches and everything are things I really would not call "sensible". I like optimising a lot of those little things for myself, but to say that is sensible for others is pushing it. Having said that, I do appreciate little gems like not having to expand the save dialog every damn time (why does it not remember that I prefer it that way?) :)
Windows never stealing focus isn't a weird default, it's a sensible one. The sensible thing to do in this situation is to display a desktop notification to select the volume. I haven't used OS X extensively, so I don't know if it has a built-in desktop notification system (I remember having to install Growl to get one), but this is something that Windows and Linux have had for a while now.
You have a point, stealing focus is utterly annoying and rarely acceptable, but that is not to say the window can not at least get to the foreground (without taking focus). In my case, new volume Finder windows are pop-unders that get lost on my messy desktop.
You initiated an action: Unzip or Mount an installer. 99% of the time I want that brought to front. Stealing focus is only bad when you did not initiate that action, hence why popups are hated so much.
I agree with your premise, but I would like to point out that there is often a significant delay between clicking on a .dmg download and there being some action.
I know that I am unlikely to sit idly and watch the download progress-bar; I'm far more likely to switch to some other tab or other application. And then, since my focus is elsewhere, we have returned to the focus stealing situation.
