Sidebar idiosyncrasy that needs fixing

Question

When you click on a Finder Window which is inactive, not only does it become active, but if you click in the Sidebar section, which is usually the only part that is visible, you also select the folder that you click over. This does not happen with a single click elsewhere in a Finder Window, only in the Sidebar, and it is a big nuisance that violates the usual rule that the first click of an inactive window activates it, but does not make a selection. Repositioning the mouse and clicking again are regular time-wasting occurrences. Should this be regarded as a bug or a feature??!

Answer 1

For some background window clicks, like those that close or minimize windows, it would make no sense to activate the window first
Keeping in mind that the option to deliberately close the background window by holding down the ⌘-key would still be there, having a single-click bring a background window forward as the default behaviour, even for the "Close" box might not be a bad thing.
For example, suppose you have a web browser window open in the background, with multiple tabs open, and the window is positioned to the top left of the screen. In the foreground, suppose there is a "Preview.app" (or "iCal.app", or "Mail.app") window, with the "drawer" open on the left side. The foreground window is positioned to the top edge of the screen, with the edge of the drawer to the left of the screen.
Now, imagine the mouse pointer being near the top left edge of the screen so that the "traffic lights" of the background window are "lit up". If things were set up this way and you called ten different people separately, to your desk and told them to "close the front window", I wonder how many would end up closing the background browser window instead, and losing all of the tabs? Unlike "unsaved changes", you don't get a confirmation dialogue in most browsers.
Ok so this is a pretty contrived scenario, but I think something similar could happen if you had just come back from lunch, or gotten off the phone or were otherwise distracted. Under such circumstances, having the window come to the front without closing would ensure that you knew what was being closed. And of course, if your intention really was to close the background window, the ⌘-click option would be available. As you say, for the "minimize" or "zoom" buttons, it wouldn't matter, but the GUI designer would have to pick one or the other behaviour to keep things consistent. Or maybe the issue calls into question the original decision to add those two buttons to the top left corner, when the pre OS X Mac kept that corner reserved for the "Close" box so that there would be no negative consequences from missing the "minimize" button by a few pixels, and no question about the user's intentions when they reach for that corner...
It isn't something I feel that strongly about, but I'll throw it out there in the spirit of discussion.