To really throw gasoline on the mental fire, middle click on window usually puts you in some sort of stupid alternate scroll mode.
I do like the context menu way.
Eventually I remember to ctrl+c but it just flows so well, select then paste that it feels like a real step backwards going to a system that does not have it.
I do agree that the middle mouse button should be divorced from the scroll wheel.
If you want to go real old school and have a proper middle button, get an HP DY651A optical 3-button USB mouse (no scroll wheel).
This is not to say that explicit actions on the clipboard aren't useful. But, as an emacs user, I'm used to way more control over the kill ring than I typically see exercised on the clipboard.
middle click is "query for the most recently selected thing and paste" while the clipboard requires an explicit copy action. In vim (even terminal vim) with X support they are the '"' (double quote) and '+' (plus sign) registers respectively. Most other applications let you copy and paste with CUA (or for terminals shift-modified CUA) keybindings.
So for something I plan on pasting longer term (or multiple times) I will typically use the clipboard. For quick "this thing needs to go here" with the mouse I use the primary selection.
I also agree that middle-click is nearly useless on a scrollwheel. Many mice have more than two buttons these days so you can always remap a function button though (as I mention in another thread, my trackball actually has 3 legit full-size top buttons, but prior to that I remapped the "browser forward" button to be middle).
Autoscroll is great by the way.
Why? It's not costing anything, action-wise
That is, even in the paradigm of middle click to paste the last selection, you still have a clipboard, don't you?
It's just badly implemented there. Internet Explorer had a completely brain-dead implementation, and every embedded webview inherited that.
Firefox always had a very nice implementation of middle-click scroll. It may sound silly, but this one of the major reasons I always hated chromium-based browsers — they do have it, but it's not nearly as nice (you can't, or at least couldn't easily scroll inside scrollable elements, the acceleration profile feels very weird, and other small things like that).
I prefer a right click. Mainly because middle click is _awkward_ using most laptops.
That's what I call awkward. Or Ctrl + right click, or any other solution.
I was not really paying attention and so did not expect it when I bought my first thinkpad, but it is so nice it has now become a must have for me.
Trying to click the mouse scroll-wheel is on par with the "push the joystick straight down" click mode that some modern game controllers have in awfulness.
It has a scroll wheel, which if you press down toggles between free-wheeling and line-by-line scrolling. It also has a physical middle mouse button just below the scroll wheel.
But then mice standardised on scrollwheels and the middle button being the depression of the scrollwheel - and it's not so good anymore. It's way too easy to accidentally scroll when clicking a mouse wheel, and few people would disable the scroll wheel or get 90's type straight 3 button mouse.
The middle click in windows for "scroll mode" (or something) as you say, is useless. And I can only assume that's a mode that exists precisely because people without scrollwheels still need to scroll so it emulates the wheel. Poorly.