A few weeks ago I downloaded Apple’s OS X Lion for my three-year-old iMac, and yesterday I bought myself a new Lion-equipped Macbook Pro just to be safe. (The other Macbook Pro, purchased in 2010, is having start-up problems and in the shop for a diagnostic.) And I’m really missing Snow Leopard, I must say.

The primary irritant is that Lion is devoted to eliminating scroll bars, which I’ve been happily using for years and years, and forcing you to mostly use the touch pad like it’s an iPad. Two fingers, three fingers, etc. A scroll bar appears on the side of a given panel every so often, but it disappears just as often. They could at least give you the option of choosing to work with scroll bars or going Full Lion, but no. You must suit up and get with their program.

I haven’t wanted to get into a fist fight this much since the heyday of my hate-on for the N.Y. Times tech guys for refusing to provide embed codes for Tony Scott‘s Critics Picks pieces.