>> It's not about emulating Windows XP, but click-to-focus simply won, on any platform. There are just a couple of X window managers that have point-to-focus. If you still want that, change the preference. The default should be what is most commonly used.

I've only ever used Gnome, KDE and, now, Unity.  They all have it but,
you're right, it's off by default.  I was wondering, though, whether
that's because they think that's the best choice, or because they had
the same conversation we're having right now, i.e., "Windows won, so
we better do what Windows did."

>> (We did change this a couple years back. It was for the better. Now your text input does not stop anymore if you knock the mouse pointer out of the way.)

If hands are typing on the keyboard, the mouse is off to the side, so
getting accidentally bumped would be pretty rare occurrence.  By
contrast, requiring click for focus demands again, and again,
constantly, all day, every day.

Now, the folks who want to use their USB mouse from the dashboard of
their car, while they're driving...  You're right, they'd be
innocently typing in a text box, but as soon as they slam on their
brakes to avoid flying off the cliff just ahead, yes, the mouse would
slide and we have a use-case for unintended focus-loss.  How
irritating that would be.  :)

I think the real issue is "expectations" like you said.  But, we've
also seen that "Think Different" can be successful too..

> Agreed.
>
> -1