I feel the same way as you do - I like to feel my system is clean and uncluttered. However, I still agree with their thoughts.
We may like quitting applications, but realistically, memory/CPU management is something that can and should be handled by the OS. It's an overhead on the user's mind that can be dealt with perfectly well by clever automation. It should keep itself clean without needing our help.
A kid growing up in a world without the 'quit' button would not feel anything is missing; we've just been conditioned by the creaky operating systems of our own youth.
I don't necessarily disagree. Most of my complaints are systems of the existing broken paradigm. That my taskbar is cluttered up could easily be fixed with their suggestions, and a part of their remedy might even be to get rid of the taskbar altogether.
The proof is in the putting, and with conceptual changes like this, I'm leery of judging before I see the actual results. For the most part, backgrounded running applications don't take up resources unless they're supposed to (like music playing, or an uptime monitor, etc.) so I don't have any qualms about leaving that to the OS (unless they screw it up,) but all the other visual aspects need to be dealt with at the same time for this to be effective.
I quit applications because open applications leave UI remnants laying around. If they can figure out a way to do the Right Thing with the UI, then it wouldn't bother me.
We may like quitting applications, but realistically, memory/CPU management is something that can and should be handled by the OS. It's an overhead on the user's mind that can be dealt with perfectly well by clever automation. It should keep itself clean without needing our help.
A kid growing up in a world without the 'quit' button would not feel anything is missing; we've just been conditioned by the creaky operating systems of our own youth.