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"On OS X, the buttons have the colors of a traffic light (red=close, yellow=minimize, green=zoom). Windows users trying a Mac for the first time understand this instantly."

Nope, that's not obvious either. Also a result of convention.

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It does require people to know what a traffic light is, and those colors are a convention, that's true. However, if they know what a traffic light is, and if they've used Windows before, no explanation is necessary. There are plenty of things that switchers have difficulty with (like the fact that 'minimize' and 'zoom' behave differently in OS X than they do in Windows), but this isn't one of them.

Also, even if people didn't understand the traffic light metaphor, a quick mouseover would clear it up: if you hover over the red button, it turns into a (X), if you hover over the yellow button, it turns into a (–), if you hover over the green button, it turns into a (+).

In Windows, 'X' "makes no sense", while in OS X, 'X' is "clear." Okay, got it :).

In isolation, you could say Windows and OS X both use an X on a red background (on mouseover). However, we're not talking about just one button and one hover state, it's part of a set of three (plus hover states).

'Cat, Dog, Rabbit' makes sense, 'Cat, Sonic boom, Carpentry' does not.

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