Are you sure all those problems are connected with AlphaControls?
I'm a user of AlphaControls,just like you,but I can give you my expirience I have had so far:
1)What version of delphi are you using? I use WMP2008(hardly modified) in all my applications and I haven't expirienced the application to freeze on maximize.
2)Are you sure that'a problem of AlphaControls? I don't think so.You'd expirience the same thing without alphaControls.
Use this:
CODE
myListBox.items.beginupdate();
//Load all items
myListBox.items.endupdate();
Another suggestion – use another control,not listbox.ListBox/ListView also take time(whether with or without skin,its vcl's fault) when loading huge amount of entries and that's reasonable,because It creates an instance of each entry.There are third party controls out there that wouldn't copy them and therefore they won't increase that much memory and of course improve performance.But I believe your problem is begin/end update.
3)same as 1).I never had such things.What do you mean with “there is a little bug”?