Business practices I won't touch.  The monopoly issue was addressed by the DOJ and EU and we still have oversight on the desktop, especially Vista and IE.  I grant you that.  Standards?  Sorry, but you are absolutely wrong here.  You want to talk about bucking standards, look no further than Apple and how proprietary they are (always have been).  Microsoft is a leader in pushing standards - proven time and time again - they aren't always widely accepted.  What I believe you are referring to is our unwillingness to break standards for the sake of fringe efforts.  It's the right thing to do, sorry you feel differently.  Do some research on Microsoft's RFC contributions and XML in general.  We play nice when invited - otherwise, of course, we need to chart our own path.

All of the reasons in your second paragraph are quite honestly without merit (sound familiar?).  If these are your only complaints we're doing quite well.  You are talking about user experience here.  There's a trade-off to be made when you make software that actually runs business environments.  I'm certain we could do better.  In fact, I know we can - it's a matter of what is more important, where Shut Down lives or whether Shut Down works.  Ctrl key locations cause you problems?  Maybe you need to adapt to the keyboard or find a keyboard that suits you better.  I've not heard this one before...

You are certainly entitled to your opinion but more folks leave Apple for Microsoft than the other way around.  I'm not sure you have any evidence that Apple (Mac) designers have better skills than Microsoft Research (in fact, MSR is continually recognized for significant contributions to computing).  They (Apple) are allowed to think outside the box much more freely than Microsoft developers.  It's a different culture and different set of problems we are trying to solve.

Where was your PowerBook made again?  How about your iPod (if you've got one)?  iPod manufacturing plants weren't even paying employees $50 a week.  Microsoft is just as guilty of hardware manufacturing outside of the US.  China owns all of us here.

And finally, I certainly don't know what we'd do without a magnetic power chord, oh my!  Really, if this is your argument for superior innovation then you haven't looked deep enough at Microsoft's accessibility efforts.  My uncle Mike is paralyzed from the neck down and thanks to Microsoft and Microsoft partners, he is employeed by the Department of Revenue as a programmer.  Yeah, I said paralyzed from the neck down and he codes.  This is just one area where our focused efforts make a difference in the world.

You'd have done yourself a favor just not posting on this one at all.