Re: mouse-1-click-follows-link

[Richard Stallman]

    To me mouse-2 is familiar for activating links, as in going from a
    message summary buffer to reading an email message; mouse-1 is not.  I
    use mouse-1 to set point and I use it frequently.

You are an experienced Emacs user, not a beginner coming to Emacs from
other GUIs.  We've decided that this default should be good for them,
because you know how to change it.

    When I have had to use other systems, mostly I have had to
    `double-click mouse-1' to activate anything.  To me in a strange
    system, `double-click mouse-1' is a sure activation command.

Some programs need two, some need one.  We had a long discussion 
of this, and decided that most users would expect a single click
to follow a link or activate a button.