It is apples vs oranges, because a control having checkboxes is different than a control without them. Otherwise, all the other list controls would be forced to space their display to the spacing of the checkboxes. After adding 'size' to your list controls, they're all the same height, but the controls without checkboxes display more lines and fit together closer because they don't need the padding for the checkbox being larger than the text.
The goal of 'option dbu' is so that your dialog looks the same for everyone, regardless what font/size they use on their systems. To achieve that, the dialog tries to pick default fonts that are on everyone's system, then displays a size depending on the $dbuw/$dbuh values, so it would appear the same for everyone. But I wish at the very least there were a fixed-width font option.
There are dll's like dcx or mdx, but I've never used them. They add features, like changing font/fontsize, colors, etc.
