Having a 'shelf' (with stack-like behavior) like Pathfinder does is very useful, it allows you to go into a dir in one tab, grab arbitrary files, park that selection temporarily, then switch to the destination and drop them. Yes, you can copy-n-paste (finally) in Finder.app, but without any way to to see what files are on the clipboard (short of pasting), and you can do two bunches at once. Of course, for lots of other file-moving, it's easier to use the command line anyhow (like matching on patterns). Pathfinder also filters and searches in the current dir, which Finder never seems to do...

The shelf here was a key part of the NeXTstep manager. Drives me nuts that Apple removed it.

What's wrong with Pathfinder that makes it not a "1st class citizen"?

When you do something like Save As... within an application and the dialog box is the native Finder.

I'm pretty sure that's a misconception. That's just the application using a system library for that dialog box, and the system library's look and feel (unsurprisingly) match the Finder's. In some cases, the code may actually be the same (i.e. the Finder itself uses that system library, too), but far from always.

This tends to show up if you're trying to tweak/customize preferences (e.g. from the command line or editing plists directly), since you usually have to duplicate the effort for both places.

At that point you're into semantics though. I'm fine with saying that Apple has BOTH a meh file manager and a meh system dialog box related to file stuff that may or may not share code. (And if they don't both work in pretty much the same way, that's mostly an annoyance as well.)

I brought it up not to nitpick semantics, but to elucidate to the, arguably more technical audience of HN, how the technical details can matter here.

Even to call it a "system" dialog is misleading, since it's just a system-provided library that each individual app is, technically, free to use or not use.

I certainly agree that it's annoying when the look, feel, and fucntion of all the apps' common interactions don't match each other. I do recall a time, though, when the system library features were so anemic, that I was actually glad of app's departure from the norm if it provided a useful new feature (e.g. "New Folder" button in a "Save" dialog).

I also agree that makes the suggestion of "use a Finder replacement app" not a solution to your real problem.

Maybe I'm suggesting that, to a nerdy-enough audience, you might have to state your real problem as being with "the Finder and all the system provided file-picking dialogs other apps tend to use".