My biggest gripe with Chrome on Linux is you can't change the default behavior of clicking in the address bar. In Firefox I can make it so clicking once selects everything. In Chrome, it drops a cursor and I have to click two or three times to get it to select everything. I understand some people want that behavior, but I don't. The Chrome team's response is that this is the Linux default and Chrome is a native Linux application, so that's how it behaves and it can't be changed.
So then they add that to the other 10,000 config options people have requested, and now it's a bloated interface and people will lament "Why can't they keep it simple?" until they strip out all of the pet features and people get mad for them "stupifying" the interface.
Who says it has to be a config option in the interface? In Firefox it's an option buried in about:config under an obscure name, not user-facing unless someone really wants to find it.
My peeve for a long time was not having the bookmark bar work (drag the bookmark over a folder and popout the submenu). It worked on Mac and Windows. The just fixed it a few months ago (it's a little clunky though but I will take it)! Yay!
I'm currently running Chrome 35.0.1916.153 on Ubuntu 14.04 with XFCE and clicking once in the address bar highlights everything all. Don't know why mine is acting different than yours, maybe they changed that since you last tried it.
I last tried it years ago, so it's possible they changed it since then. When I read that response on their forum, I completely gave up on Chrome and haven't touched it since then. I don't care if "it's not the Linux way" [1], it's my way and who is Google to tell me otherwise?
No thanks.