"close" to system tray.

In the past week I've had some real problems minimising applications to the system tray which has made me feel really stupid and now I'm angry. After all, I'm a bloody software engineer and usability specialist and if I can't do something as simple as that then there is clearly something amiss.

The problem is this, some how it's become the norm for the user to have to press the 'x' (close button) to MINIMISE a piece of software to the system tray instead of the '_' (MINIMISE button). Of course this isn't a universal trend so you can never be sure what's going to happen.

The offending software that brought this sharply to my attention is Google Talk, but since then I've noticed it in Gaim, QuickTime and SharpReader... to name a few.

When on earth did it become okay to CLOSE an application to the system tray? When did it become okay for the software developer to tell me that "I didn't really want to close the application, merely hide it from my screen"?

Of course I suppose the "helpful" software engineers were just responding to support emails whinging that some users keep pressing the close button when they mean to minimise the application, but really there must be a better solution then to completely redefine the default behaviour of an application.