So, I've been playing through this recently... and I'm about halfway through it. Through playing it, I've noticed something... why the fuck does Booker keeping smashing buttons!? What the fuck is his problem!? Also, will this get addressed in the amazing ending this game is meant to have?

Because he's a rebel who laughs in the face of social norms?

Much like jamming on the button over and over again makes the elevator arrive/leave faster, smashing it really hard does so even faster.

I'm more confused as to why water sticks to his eyes and he glides across surfaces instead of walking on them.

It is revealed at the end of the game that Elizabeth isn't actually a a physical being but instead a cloud of inanimate object hatred. Whenever she is within a general vicinity of Booker, he takes anger out of lifeless objects, like smashing buttons or eating the shit out of every food item nearby, even though he isn't hungry.

@somedelicook: I already played the game and you still managed to spoil it for me.

If I wore a vest like that I'd punch the shit out of buttons too.

He's a punk, man. He doesn't care about them rules.

Because ALIZABITH! ALIZABITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RAMIREZ!

lol

Because all of the buttons are huge and must be punched.

This is how buttons are supposed to be operated. You're the one who has been doing it wrong.

I was too hung up on fact that they built so many elevators with only two destinations to notice.

When he ate that cake in the trash can it was full of parasites that now live in his brain. In order to reproduce they have to have their host die and the corpse be eaten by animals so that they can live in the scavengers' guts. They slighty tweak Booker's personality to compulsively and violently smack buttons in hopes that one day he will punch through the panel, electrocuting himself and leaving a body for the creatures to feed on.