I don't get any kind of "Now you can remove your USB stick" notifications in Ubuntu, and frankly have no idea if and when the files I was copying to/from it are written/read. The copy dialog does not appear for small files, but a lot of errors occasionally popup that have to do with removing the stick too early. That is not a good user interface. There should be definite message that notifies me that I can remove it.

Frankly this applies to any removable storage media.

What should work, and how this should work? I don't like unreliable systems.

The write-cache is probably on, and I like it that way.