Comment 311 for bug 532633

Too many control elements in the same place actually increase distance between all of them due to Fitts law - if there are many elements in one area, you need to slow down the mouse movement to accurately hit the one specific target you are aiming for. Moving such dangerous button as 'Close' into the mix increases it even more as you will want to be REALLY careful not to close your window by accident.

In short - moving these buttons left actually decreases the speed that you can work with menus, toolbars and Applications menu - in has a hard negative impact on the usability of all elements around it. While a rare 'Close' action might be sped up a bit, all the freqent actions of accessing the menu, using toolbar buttons and using Applications menu are significantly slowed down by the presence of the explosive 'Close' button in that area of the screen.

While you might the merfect mouse sharpshooter, keeping in mind the needs of people with less precise mouse movements is also important - the precision needed to hit these buttons on the left among all the other control elements there is much higher than before - people with special needs and movement problems will have a much harder time navigating this environment.

This is why I would recommend the layout of 'minimize,maximize, title ,close'. Accidental clicks on minimize or maximize are easy to undo and maximize can be also accessed by double-clicking the title, so minimize should be in the corner as it is harder to access otherwise.