It's not that Windows Explorer is much better, though. I hate how it prefers to display everything as icons instead of details. How it hides files and directories, doesn't show extensions, etc. But there's one thing it gets right: it shows you where you are, and you can edit that to go anywhere.

Finder can do that too, but it doesn't show you it can do that. You have to know. I recently got a Macbook from work, partially because a Mac-fan coworker had been bugging me to switch from Windows to Mac. At some point I was showing something and typed a path straight into Finder, which blew his mind! He'd been using Macs for ages, and he just wasn't aware that Finder could do that. He learned something useful and new, but it's also quite telling that even some experienced Mac users aren't aware of the existence of such a vital feature.