I consider Aquamacs's stated goal to be a worthy goal, but Aquamacs does not actually change Emacs's behavior to be more like an ordinary GUI app in situations I care about.
For example, in Emacs, if you use the pointing device to select an extent of text then hit the right (left) arrow key, the selection is increased in size by one character to the right (left). In contrast, the vast majority of GUI apps on Windows, OS X and Linux inactivate the selection leaving the insertion point at the right (left) edge of where the selection was (and you can get the behavior that Emacs uses by modifying the right-arrow key press with the shift key). Aquamacs chose the Emacs way of behaving here.
In summary, most of the choices Aquamacs made for when to do things the Emacs way and when to do them the standard GUI way differ from the choice I would have made.
P.S. In the situation examined above, the behavior of Acme (tested on plan9port on OS X) also differs from standard GUI behavior, but in a way different from how Emacs differs: Acme inactivates the selection, but then moves the insertion point one character to the right of the right edge of where the insertion point was, which makes some sort of internal logical sense (if the selection is considered to be a sort of insertion point that has temporarily stretched to be n characters wide) but is a poor design decision for Acme users that have to switch back and forth between Acme and other GUI apps.
I consider Aquamacs's stated goal to be a worthy goal, but Aquamacs does not actually change Emacs's behavior to be more like an ordinary GUI app in situations I care about.
For example, in Emacs, if you use the pointing device to select an extent of text then hit the right (left) arrow key, the selection is increased in size by one character to the right (left). In contrast, the vast majority of GUI apps on Windows, OS X and Linux inactivate the selection leaving the insertion point at the right (left) edge of where the selection was (and you can get the behavior that Emacs uses by modifying the right-arrow key press with the shift key). Aquamacs chose the Emacs way of behaving here.
In summary, most of the choices Aquamacs made for when to do things the Emacs way and when to do them the standard GUI way differ from the choice I would have made.
P.S. In the situation examined above, the behavior of Acme (tested on plan9port on OS X) also differs from standard GUI behavior, but in a way different from how Emacs differs: Acme inactivates the selection, but then moves the insertion point one character to the right of the right edge of where the insertion point was, which makes some sort of internal logical sense (if the selection is considered to be a sort of insertion point that has temporarily stretched to be n characters wide) but is a poor design decision for Acme users that have to switch back and forth between Acme and other GUI apps.