> what is the difference then between closing and minimizing?
Closing is putting away, as in “I don’t think I’ll need it in the near future”, and minimising is putting aside as in “I’ll probably come back to this in 5 minutes”. The minimised window is not cluttering the screen but still accessible from the dock and list of open windows in its application. This is not related to the problem you claimed to have with an application being still open without having a single window.
I love the fact that clicking the close icon of a window doesn’t terminate the application
Haven’t experienced this, not sure what you are referring to.
Also something I like. The fact that an installation is just moving an executable, is to me, superior to an entire process with regedit and what not.
As I said somewhere below, it might just come down to what one is used to and not objective facts.