Or when you need to restart the machine because of a low-level software update... or because something has gone wrong with the software or the hardware.

Interesting. When I want to quit applications, I quit applications. When I'm done running the machine for awhile, I sleep it. I only ever reboot because of software update anymore.

Well, to add insult to injury, resume plain out doesn't work as soon as you leave the beaten path ever so slightly.

I.e. I really don't need iTerm to resume because it can't restore my sessions anyway. And even most regular apps fail to resume for me because almost all of my files are on a network share that OSX fails to auto-mount.

There are better solutions than restarting applications in that case -- specifically, c/r solutions aren't too hard, and require no work from app developers to support.