Balancing Design and Usability

Jörn Bodemann with e-spirit thinks that the Mac way of presenting your computer's shutdown screen isn't as usable as the old XP way of selecting your shutdown method from a drop-down list because:

What at first appears to be an improvement in functionality – a more organized layout – turns out on closer inspection to be an improvement of design at the expense of functionality. This is because the “uncool” drop-down menu previously used by Windows users to shut down the PC would always “remember” the last action selected and suggest it to the user at the next startup – since the average user will always want to do the same thing here, in this case shut down the computer, and thus all they had to do was confirm their previous choice. For the average user it is not necessary – and makes little sense – to have to view all the available options lined up all at once side by side. In this case, the drop-down menu is much more user-friendly than the new window, which is generally perceived to be “prettier” but where you have to enter a selection each time.

I understand what he's saying, but I'm not sure I agree. Having all of the options in front of you sure seems to be the best way to go in this instance, even more so when you consider that when you're looking at the shutdown screen for either OS the rest of the computer screen is grayed out. In addition, if we assume that you don't need to make another selection from the drop-down list, both methods require the same amount of clicks: OK for Windows and your shutdown option for Apple. In my opinion, the Apple method offers you greater flexibility since all of your options are right out in the open, rather than hidden behind a drop-down list.
(Note, however, that the Apple version is still superior, because it lets you hit Enter for the Shut Down option, while Windows doesn't remember your last chose and requires you to learn a keystroke combination to Shut Down with the keyboard.)