OK, for the File Print/Save, the ribbon does go back to the Home tab. That's probably a design decision, based on MS's testing of what users are likely to want to do next. Having the Ribbon stay on that tab would be less useful for most users most of the time.

As for your second example, Word stays on the active tab throughout. Indeed, just hovering over any Style will preview the change to the selected content - without the need to actually change anything - so that's probably not a good example of the behaviour you dislike.

Regarding highlighting a word then going to page layout, those two activities are entirely unrelated. In any event, the Page layout tab remains available and active because: (a) there are things you can do there regardless of whether anything is selected (which is not the same as whether its highlighted); and (b) that probably reflects MS's research into what's most useful for most users most of the time (i.e. users are likely to want to do multiple things on that tab).

Of course, if you don't like the way the apps work (or even if you do), I'm sure MS would welcome your feedback.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]