>>>My desktop shortcuts are in one stack on the left. All windows on that monitor are positioned to the right of that stack, so no need to minimize or close anything.
>>
>>So you're permanently wasting part of the most limited asset on your machine (the pixels on your monitor) just so you can use a lame technology? :)
>>
>>Icons were perhaps good on machines with 1M RAM and FAT12 filesystem - when you couldn't have that much stuff loaded, so many apps installed, so many files in your documents. With just 200 files in a folder, icons become unusable and actually begin hiding the content they were supposed to make easier to spot.
>>
>>Pretty much like a combo - up to 30 it's manageable by eye-mouse coordination. Beyond that, not.
>
>It's a 24 inch monitor, and it's one of two. Screen real estate is not an issue.

Mouse mileage is :).