"Stan Brown" wrote

| I assure you that I have UAC turned on and I don't get "incessant
| permissions and ownership BS". Partly, I'm sure, it's because I took
| the trouble to learn how I should use UAC _before_ I started loading
| stuff on my Windows 7 laptop.

No. Because you don't have occasion to access
files outside of your assigned purview. I have UAC
disabled, but there are still problems that require
me to change ownership/permission. It's very simple:
With NTFS file restrictions there are restrictions.

The UAC setting is only part of that, designed to
minimize hassles (so as not to repeat the Vista fiasco
where no one wanted the product).

If you're happy to stay in your assigned area --
personal app data -- then you're fine. If not then
there are blocks and interruptions. How you feel
about those, again, will depend on how comfortable
you are running in corporate lackey mode or whether
you expect full control of the system.

The long and the short of it is that if you like
to enable UAC, and maybe even run an AV or
two, that's fine. But people who don't want to do
that are not wrong or stupid. (Though I realize
one of your favorite pastimes is thinking people
to be stupid.)
The real problem is
that MS makes it very difficult to choose options,
in order to save on support costs. If there were
a checkbox marked "Make me a fake admin", and
one could just uncheck it, then all would be fine.
You could run as lackey and we could drive
without a seat belt. They could even hide it behind
an intimidating "Advanced" button, as far as I'm
concerned.

The only problem I've ever had with
Windows is that pushy attitude that refuses to
allow choice without searching for days to dig
up secret, commandline incantations.