Perhaps I'm an edge case. My MBP doesn't have a center click. :P
No, but it has a right-click. Use it.
Let cmd-click be your friend :)
EDIT: Sorry, didn't notice your response below.
Yeah but you can get BetterTouchTool and use 3 finger click to open in new tab. It's awesome.
It is _an_ answer. It interrupts my experience when I forget to Command-click and close the tab on accident.
In this case, I think it's _the_ answer. Your request goes against the grain of what most people would tend to prefer: links act as they were designed to, user modifies behavior by choice.