With all the acknowledgement of Apple's role on the history of this, I have to wonder whether they are aware that Apple has been laying the groundwork for doing

With all the acknowledgement of Apple's role on the history of this, I have to wonder whether they are aware that Apple has been laying the groundwork for doing the same thing since Snow Leopard, and that Lion can already automatically quit and even pre-start applications without the user's involvement. That said, I suspect Apple will keep the "quit" menu item even if it's not necessary for at least one version so that people have a chance to learn that it isn't necessary without being freaked out by it's sudden disappearance. Also, although app developers have been encouraged to adopt to the new conventions, there will be plenty of legacy apps that don't for some time to come.