[jbri]

I would guess it's because window management on Windows (at least until 7) was just Too Hard. 7 improves things a lot, but it's still not as good as it could be.

If you bring up a window, and it's too small, you could either: A. Drag it to where you want it, and then fiddle around resizing it so that it's big enough and doesn't overlap anything else important, or B. Maximize it in one click, do what you need, minimize it again.

Additionally, Windows windows have lots of chrome when unmaximized, and this tends to discourage heaps-of-small-windows layouts.

[unfasten]

>...either: A. Drag it to where you want it, and then fiddle around resizing it so that it's big enough and doesn't overlap anything else important...

Try out Winsplit Revolution. The help page gives a nice overview of the functionality: http://www.winsplit-revolution.com/help

It's free and works great for positioning windows. You can position windows using hotkeys and create custom positions/window sizes. WIN+ALT+Numpad 7 will place and resize a window in the top left of the screen, WIN+ALT+Numpad 6 will place a window on the right side of the screen and take exactly half the width, etc. It's become second nature to me and I rarely have to worry about manually placing a window.

[ashleyw]

Also Divvy for OS X which does the same kind of thing.