It's been my experience that all the "moms" aren't the ones opening an application, closing all the windows, and then sometime later expecting that application to be there so they can command-tab to it. Instead I see a million apps left running on the dock because they clicked the red button on the window when they were done with the app.
This times 1,000. Mom's don't use alt+tab. The thing people aren't appreciating is that when you reopen the app (which is available via Mission Control, via Spotlight, via the Finder or perhaps via the Dock), it restores to the place it was when it was left (if there were windows open).
I strongly disagree. There are a strong contingent of clueless power users out there: people who don't know a lot about computers (and don't want to), but who still use them for many different tasks, every day. And these users do so by forming familiar habits. And while some of these habits are bound to be broken by new OS releases, I don't think it should be done lightly. This may be a small issue, but I still think it was a poor design choice.
My aunt is kind of like this. She projects an air of knowing absolutely nothing about computers and mild distaste for them, and yet she's the most capable non-techie I know, and has occasionally been known to drop phrases like "PCI bus" in conversation.
She used to be a typist and a stenographer, so you're probably right about the forming habits key.
I've been unsuccessfully trying to educate my wife about this behavior for years! The windows model of "app closes with last window" seems to be too far ingrained in her to change.
