Mauve (9/27/2010)
Having worked with Oracle for 25+ years, I'm continually frustrated with the lack of "core" functionality that Microsoft is so slow to implement. This is just another one as Oracle implemented the windowing functionality quite a while ago. Microsoft spends more time on the "eye candy" than the stuff that really matters. It's like designing more cup holders for a car rather than what is "under the hood".
Is it "core"?
I have to say that I haven't missed these functions often. Perhaps it's ignorance of what they can do for me, but I haven't seen this as a big issue. More a nice to have.
I have yet to see people give me a good, wide range of where these things help in an every day situation. Will this help a lot of people regularly? I have asked some of the T-SQL people that I respect and have pushed for this, but they haven't given me enough practical examples. It seems that this is something that will help in some domains, but I'm not sure it's a lot of domains.