First of all, osx is not like windows. There are extremely few cases where deleting a program and reinstalling it is necessary. In general, all you need to do is delete the preferences for the application, then run it again and allow it to create a fresh preferences file. Most of the time, your preferences will be found in your home folder under library/preferences. There's other places where files can go, but that folder is by far the most common. Simply poke around in that folder, and delete any files that have the name of the application you want to reset. I.E. if you want to reset your itunes prefs, simply remove the file com.apple.itunes.plist.
That's all there is to it.However, if you do decide you really don't want an application anymore, just delete it from the applications folder, and it's gone, poof, no muss, no fuss. All of the pieces needed for the application are bundled with the application itself, unlike windows which may have dlls in one folder, configuration files in another directory, and helper applications in yet another location, on osx, everything the application needs is bundled with the application. In fact, when you open an application, you're not actually opening the application directly, because the app file that is in your applications folder is nothing more than a folder that is treated special by finder, to make it appear as a whole unit, when truly, it's just a folder like any other, with all sorts of things in it, such as media files, support libraries, and the executable file which is the actual application itself. So, when you delete an application, all you're doing is taking that application folder and moving it to another folder that osx treats special as well, that being your trash can.
There's no magic here.If an application isn't working, unless you're upgrading the app, deleting and reinstalling (which is so common on windows to fix things) isn't necessary, because it will change nothing in the app itself by doing so. Removing the preferences files usually resets an application to it's initial install state, since that's the place it gets all of it's operational parameters.
Hope this helps.
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