That's lovely, but you're not paying attention. It doesn't matter how it's set up. It matters how it preforms.
To the non-enthusiast / casual user, closing the lid, pressing the power button, doing a system shutdown, inactivity sleep timeout, and the battery running out are all the same thing: the computer was "on", now it's "off". Asking someone like this to think about how the reason it came to be "off" affects how fast it will be ready for them later is a fool's errand. It needs to be fast in every circumstance.
Normal people just want to get something done. They judge their computer by how easy it is to use and how fast it responds to what they do. That included cold boots, launching program, and downloading webpages. Even if they're doing something "the wrong way", they will still judge it with the same criteria and the same harshness. I want my grandfather to use linux because I can quickly help him and fix things from afar, and because there are very few ways for him to mess it up. He uses it because he really thinks it's better then windows, and that's purely because it's fast and easy, every way he uses it.
For the record, I set it up so the power button does a shutdown, and everything else results in a hybrid sleep. What he understands that he can shut it down if he wants, otherwise no matter what happens (lid closed or not) everything will be the way he left it, even if he forgets about it for a few days or doesn't charge it.
That kind of simplicity is what allows people to think of linux as something they can use, not just some super complicated tool for "hackers" and "computer geniuses". I'm not saying it should be dumbed down or have options removed, but I am saying that making it enjoyable for everyone results in more people using it, and that benefits us all.