Your post prompted me to give it another try. I found that you can drag windows between workspaces in the "mini workspace viewer" in the upper right, which is definitely an improvement over Ubuntu. However, you can't move them by simply pressing the windows against the side of the screen.
The focus stealing issues are the same as in Ubuntu. Start launching an app and switch to another window; the app will jump in front when it's done launching. Argh!
However, I prefer to re-map CapsLock to <Hyper>, and define <SHIFT>-<HYPER>-Up to move window to workspace up, and so on.
Can't help with the stealing, sorry.
Anyways thanks for the tip.
In common it seems with most features of the UI KDE has a setting for that!
It's in the settings with the "focus policy" slider (click at one end, hover at the other) labelled as "focus stealing prevention". IIRC it was in KDE3 too.
I can't speak for other DE/WMs, but I didn't want to leave someone suffering the pain of trying to resize using the corner/edge drag handles - they really are unacceptably small.
Edit: I can also add that clicking on the workspace switcher or pressing Super/Windows+s in Unity brings up a screen that lets you drag windows between viewports. I'm sure it's not what you're used to, but I find it to be sufficient.
#3. When I do ctrl-alt-left/right/up/down, it moves the workspace with me, so you retain focus on the window the whole time, plus it shows a brief display and arrow showing the window moving. It might still be weird to use hotkeys, but I definitely know where the window went at all times.
I'll try to explain what I like about the Mac and what bothers me when I use Linux. Since you mentioned window management, I'll focus on that, comparing it to Ubuntu 12.
1. Window resizing in OS X is way nicer. It's actually possible to resize a window with a scrollbar from the lower right (on Ubuntu, the click target is literally one pixel wide). Resizing from the left edge doesn't result in weird tearing and graphics artifacts like it does in Ubuntu and Windows. The command key allows you to drag, resize, and do other interactions with windows without bringing them to the front. OS X also supports centered and fixed-aspect ratio resizing (shift and option keys); if this is possible on Ubuntu I couldn't find it.
2. The way hiding / minimization works in Ubuntu is very confusing to me. There doesn't seem to be a way to show all the minimized windows for an app, except for the weird and jarring Exposé knockoff that you get when you click on one of the icons in the Launcher.
3. Workspaces in OS X are much nicer. To move a window to another workspace in OS X, I just press it against the relevant side of the screen, or swipe up to enter Mission Control and drag it there. On Ubuntu, you can't drag windows to another workspace; you can instead use the context menu or press control-alt-arrow, which causes the window to disappear with no indication of where it went.
4. It's hard to distinguish the foreground window from other windows in Ubuntu. The only thing that seems to change is the titlebar. Even the text selection color is the same for foreground and background windows.
5. Focus stealing issues in Ubuntu are rampant. Click on a slow launching app like LibreWriter; when it finishes launching it will jump in front of the window you are currently using, and steal the keyboard focus. This happens occasionally on OS X and it bugs the hell out of me. I don't think I could stand an OS where that is the default behavior.
There's certainly some places where I find Ubuntu to be nicer, and some places that OS X falls down. My overall impression, though, is that OS X is more polished, and that Ubuntu has more clumsy knock-offs of OS X features.