@Waccoon:
I find that inconvinient. I use my desktop as a working folder, and keep all my program shortcuts stashed away in other places, so I expect it to work just like a normal folder. If you're worried about clutter, multiple workspaces is a must-have feature for a modern OS, especially if it expects to attract power users.
This as you should expect is a matter of personal taste, and as such it should be possible to costumize it... but still, you can have programs on the desktop 'hardlinked'.
IMO what really helps to avoid clutter is using RAM as desktop.
I don't know if mac has a buffer zone, but Windows methaphor is a bit as linux 'everything is a file' way of doing things, as there are more effective ways to do it without going on using always the same metaphor
