People are under the assumption that memory management still functions like it did 10 years ago in the days of Windows XP. That is to say, they assume that Windows carves out whatever chunk it needs and refuses to ever give it back.
This is no longer the case.
Under the Windows Vista/7 memory management model, the Windows stack and other applications are free to gobble up memory to a point. In contrast, however, Vista/7 is more than willing to release that memory in the event another application demands precedence.
For example, EverQuest was running and demanded 692MB. As soon as I closed it, Firefox's memory consumption began to inflate. When I launched EverQuest again, Firefox's memory consumption scaled back.
If you're the kind of person that has 50% free memory after Windows, a 1GB application, and various other apps, you should not be surprised by high-memory apps.
Memory just isn't handled the same any more, so I don't know why people are bitching.
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