I don't know what's with all the stacks haters. I guess I just don't understand the appeal of the hierarchical menus everyone seems to miss. They always seemed like kind of an awkward to navigate the file system (one bump of the mouse and you're back to square one).

The "Downloads" folder is the perfect example of what stacks were meant to be; a temporary holding place for files that you need quick access to. Back before multitasking, it made sense to use the desktop for that, but these days we need something that's accessible even when there are other windows open.

Maybe the solution is for Apple to add a "View As... > Menu" option for folks who like the old functionality.

Two things:

1) Put a stack of your Applications folder in the Dock. It's icon is the Address Book icon. How is this helpful?

2) My big complaint is that they didn't include some sort of option for accessing the old behavior. It's bad form to remove a feature unnecessarily, imho... Especially one that so many of us used! Steve doesn't use it, so it can go? Like I said, really just bad form...

I hate stacks too. For me it's nothing but an incredibly slow way to access files and folders.

If by the "old behavior" you mean opening a folder when its clicked in the dock, do this:

- toss your dock stacks
- make aliases to whichever folders you want
- drag those to the dock
- toss the aliases

Now, clicking on the folders in the dock will open them rather than stack them

- mcgoogles