How to move applications without copying?

Experimented in Mountain Lion. It's the apps themselves that need their permissions changed. With iTunes, the defaults are like this:

I opened the lock and changed the Custom setting to Read & Write. I was then able to move iTunes wherever I wanted. Mail didn't have the extra everyone heading, but changing the two which were Read only to Read & Write allowed me to move it into a new subfolder within Applications.

Firefox allowed me to put it where I wanted with no modifications, as did any other third party app. For whatever reason, Apple seems to think the location of their apps should be immutable. Most of the reason for it though is because of the large number of users who intentionally, or accidentally move or delete things they shouldn't. Like hiding the Library folder in your user account. Same reason. People digging and tossing willy-nilly without knowing what they're doing. I think most of these kinds of changes were to cut down on support calls.

I know you don't want to hear it, but I feel I must add that this is not a good idea. The biggest reason being one you mentioned. Hard wired coding. Apps may not update properly, or at all if the updaters don't find things in their default locations. I've had the occasional third party app in the past that refused to even run if it wasn't specifically in the Applications folder.

Lion has changed the permissions of certain folders as belonging to the OS. You should be able to accomplish what you want by simply changing the permissions.

Highlight the Applications folder and press Command+I. Click the lock at the lower left and enter your admin password. Under Sharing & Permissions. I'm looking at a Mountain Lion Applications folder from within Snow Leopard at the moment, but I believe it's the same for Lion. Right now, only System and Admin have Read/Write access. Click the + button to add yourself (the current logged in user account) with Read/Write access. Close the box.

Can you move them now, or do they still insist on copying?

Technically, you should leave the applications in the Applications folder. Application updates generally assume that they are loccated there. If you want to have custom folders with your applications, use aliases for the applications.

Thanks so much for enabling my bad behavior :-).

Haha! No problem. 🙂

I'll also add that I still think its bad design to hard code in paths.

I agree. Like this one I discovered a while back:

The Adobe CS4 applications have their own new annoyance. I have found that if you remove the profile "sRGB Profile.icc" from the /System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/folder, the File Info dialogue box in Illustrator CS4 will come up blank! So will the entire Adobe Extension Manager CS4 interface. What this one particular profile could possibly have to do with the display of a dialogue box, I don't know. You also can't move that profile to the /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/ folder, or the Profiles folder in your user account. While the profile is just as active in either location, the CS4 applications mentioned will blank out if that profile is not specifically in the System's Profiles folder.

Really bad programming there. For one, there's zero need in the first place for a display box to require any kind of profile. Secondly, there's also zero reason for the apps to hard code the location of a particular profile. If sRGB is in an active Profiles folder in any location, it should be able to find the profile the same way every other app does.

But I also wish there was a way to click a checkbox or something to take the training wheels off. I don't like the "Apple knows best" attitude, which is exactly what drove me away from Windows many years ago. But I digress...

Not completely. That's been a huge gripe from many, many users on Apple's decision making of late. As in, "What!? You removed Save As? What!? You mean I can't turn Autosave/Versions off!!??" Whose documents are these, anyway? The early Lion "feature" that insisted on opening all of the windows and apps you had open on a restart, again to mimic an iPad, which wouldn't stay turned off until enough users complained. And other examples where Apple is trying much too hard to try and make OS X look and behave like the iOS. Sorry, this is a desktop computer I'm using, not an iPad. Quit trying to make my desktop behave like an iPad. Different type of computer, completely different usage.