I think you're wrong. Before the grouping was added, I watched people click through half a dozen different windows trying to find their document. The labels were never useful once you had multiple documents, because they got truncated so short.

Moreover, I don't believe that the entire UI world just randomly decided to add icons to everything. It seems more likely that all indications are that people use the icons.

> 7 won't allow it at all.

I don't know what you're talking about. The "never combine" setting is still there.

> And don't try to tell anybody that thumbnails of sustantially-similar looking text documents are a substitute for taskbar labels.

Actually, they're much more useful, because the thumbnail often reveals a lot about the document, and also because the title is right above the thumbnail.