> There are other options, like Aquamacs, which are supposed to make Emacs more "Mac-like", but they're problematic in the long run because they're set up so differently from standard Emacs that it's difficult to use the Emacs manual or follow along with tutorials.

Having used emacs on linux, windows and now mac I disagree with this - though aquamacs introduces some (annoying, to me) functionality, you can simply turn these off and it works just like emacs in any other environment.

I have found aquamacs works better with ansi-term + with full-screen functionality than vanilla emacs, and I use both these functions enough to not want to go back.