I'd never recommend anything try to be "more like Windows", for any reason, least of all a perceived winning of new users. I think Linux usability can learn a lot from the Mac, though -- there are many things that Apple has learned to get just right over the years (and, on the flipside, many things they've horribly fucked up; nobody's perfect), and the perception that "we don't do things that way" would hopefully be somewhat lessened by the fact that the Mac OS, too, is built on top of UNIX.

\r\n\r\n

And that essay seems, to me, to be verging on NIH syndrome. Not a good thing.