Most of these at best are so-so wouldn’t use them anyway features.
Expose - looks like it’s not as annoying as the flip3D but still one of those features that my usage would never need. Got the icons on the start bar, got alt-tab, don’t need to thumbnail everything.
Virtual Workspace - There was an app for Win3.11 that did this, Dashboard which I think was made by Quarterdeck, Dashboard also had dockable applets back before anybody even invented the word applet. I really liked Dashboard but I never used the Virtual Workspace thing, tried it once or twice but it turned into a “which freaking desktop did I put that app in” frustration.
Back to my Mac - never left a document at home, and 99 bucks a year sounds pretty steep to fix a problem I’ve never had.
Screen sharing - don’t chat, never felt a need to show anybody my screen that wasn’t accessible by a shout of “come here”.
Time machine - I remember when I cared about backups, then I realized I was spending vast hours making them and never used them.
ISO burning - there are so many 3rd party apps for ISO burning, many available free from places like TuCows. I can sort of agree it should be in the OS, but it’s not that exciting.
Stickie Notes - I remember about 8 years ago somebody figured out how to tweak some settings in Win98 to get iconless shortcuts to nothing which you could then name anything, fake stickie notes. When I need to leave myself a reminder I just use notepad. An OK feature I suppose.
Podcast capture - never wanted to do it, don’t listen to podcasts, but I know there’s tons of apps on TuCows for it.
Software repositories - You mean TuCows? OK you have to do a download and install but is it really that hard?
Desktop Cube - looks ugly, wouldn’t use it.
Application Dock - Remember Dashboard? Did the same thing in Win3.11. Not really sure what’s so terribly different between that and the QuickLaunch in XP, unclutter, one click launch, maybe it’s got sexier icons.
Automated screen shots - Isn’t PC World the guys that labeled Paint one of the worst apps ever last year? I think they just don’t get it and therefore anything that uses it is “bad”. Paint’s a fine no thrills app and pasting screenshots into it isn’t a pain.
Multitouch trackpad gestures - Having played Black & White anything that mentions “gestures” as a form of UI immediately makes me recoil in horror. I suppose this is probably implemented better but as a concept I still don’t like it.
Cover flow - oh great add a bunch of graphics to a simple folder view, just what the world didn’t need.
Pre-installed web server - they don’t even make sense on this one, they admit that the latest version of Windows can pre-install a web server.
POSIX compliance - there’s plenty of free software for Windows too. I suppose if you’re a cross platform person putting the same app on all your platforms is nice, but MS has never believed in cross platform users.
Standardized menu ribbon - Actually there IS a standard for Windows menus, but the only way they have to enforce it is with logo certification and the vast majority of things made for Windows never bother with logo cert.
Single file apps - OK this one is good. Though when apps are clean they do tend to be single folder.
Expose: It really is that good and fast when you have multiple things open. An option for activating it will spread out all of the documents for just the current application. Another one does the equivalent of Windows-D.
Virtual Workspace - Definitely not new. But this is the best way of managing them I've ever seen. You even can do Expose with your workspaces, helpful for those “which freaking desktop did I put that app in” moments.
Back to my Mac, Screen sharing: Yeah, those are really need-based ones.
Time machine: Still don't have to care, spend only a second setting up backups ("Yes, I want to use this drive for Time Machine" when you plug one in) and then forget about them. Unless you need a restore, the issue will only come up again when you fill your backup drive, and clicking to allow it to drop off older backups takes care of that. That's the beauty of Time Machine -- backups that people will actually make.
ISO burning: Not exciting, but still a useful item.
Stickie Notes: Funny, I actually never use this one.
Podcast capture: This one either.
Software repositories: agree.
Desktop Cube: Definitely agree.
Application Dock: It's really a combination of quick launch, the task bar and putting in a few toolbars. And yes it has sexier, and live icons (video still runs, progress of apps shows in the icons). Little things like actually showing today's date on the Calendar icon lets me know someone was paying attention to detail.
Automated screen shots: Paint's fine for what it's for. But Windows adds unnecessary steps to taking screenshots. To get the full ability of OS X screenshots you have to install a third-party app.
Multitouch trackpad gestures: It is implemented better, more natural.
Cover flow: Cover Flow rocks! It's not just graphics, it's seeing your documents fly by. Looking for an image and tiny thumbnails aren't doing it? Flip through them in Cover Flow. Hitting the space bar shows whatever document you have selected in a larger window -- if it's a multi-page document you can flip through pages, if it's a movie you can play it (even make it go full screen), etc. Actually playing a movie in the QuickTime application is now unnecessary.
Pre-installed web server: I don't get that one either, unless you're talking about Vista Home, which doesn't come with it.
POSIX compliance: This is cool in that a lot of high-speed stuff (not just crapware) is out there free for UNIX, and thus now Mac.
Standardized menu ribbon: True, it's the applications. This is where Apple's momentum helps, since it's been hammering on developers about such standards from the beginning. Not mentioned, the menu bar always being at the top is a big advantage.
Single file apps: Yep, it is good. Unfortunately not all installs are drag-and-drop on the Mac.