How to make the maximize button behave consistently across applications?
If you want it to behave like Windows, the only real answer is to simply use Windows.  I know that sounds flippant, but you cannot use one operating system and expect to be able to pick and choose it's behaviour based on your personal preferences of other systems.

The maximise paradigm simply doesn't work on Macs, where the ideal is that the function is to set the window size to best fit the content rather than the screen.  The point being that the content is what is important, and that stays the same regardless of if you are on a 11" laptop screen or a 27" desktop behemoth.  Now we all know that this isn't always properly implemented, but we also know that it is the developers prerogative to do the implementation, it's not a failing in the OS, and given a choice of "one size fits all full screen" that always does the same thing, or intelligent (when the developer adds it) maximising to meet the needs of the content, then I prefer the existing system.

If maximise as per the Windows system makes sense for a given app (bearing in mind that for many, I would say most, it simply does not), then you really want to be looking into the Full Screen options that are provided from Lion onwards, which are further improved upon in Mountain Lion for external displays etc, as this will provide you with exactly what you need, you just have to use another icon.  If your app does not support this yet, then there are a number of workarounds like this one for the time being.