[flomo]

Right, Macs always have had the premise of "spacial window management" (or that's what Siracusa called it), so that's probably how you are 'supposed to' do it.

Full Screen Mode was their answer to maximize, going back many years now (10.7).

[wtallis]

The spatial Finder was something different: having each folder open a new window, and that particular folder's window always re-opening in the same position on screen, with the same window size and same layout of files inside. Having the position of each folder remain consistent and persistent allows you to remember a file's spatial location much as you would for a printed document on a physical desk (exactly where you left it), rather than having to recall its path in the file system hierarchy.

Obviously all of that works better if Finder windows don't usually fill the screen, but it's not a hard requirement.

[flomo]

With the classic OS, all the windows were supposed to work this way. And it seems most apps still do remember their window positions, making it easy to find them. (Expose even keeps the positions consistent when you 'zoom-out'.) Which is why Mac users tend to position their windows rather than relying on alt-tab or the dock or another app-switcher.

(IMO the spacial Finder was designed around floppies and small folders and didn't work so well with hierarchical folder views, so no big loss...)