Before OS X, APple was still using a better (in my opinion) method of identifying file's type and their creator. They were tiny four character tags' marking the file "Type" and its "Creator." Those bits of code could be used by any developer to determine if his app could work with any particular file. And the OS knew exactly what app had created it. Now, the OS has no idea who created a "txt/text" file. There are literally dozens of apps that can create those. But double-clicking one will not open its actual creator but whatever the OS now thinks should use them, very often an Apple developed program, of course. This scheme made Apple's particularly 'smart' in the PC world since they were limited to what we now must use; simple 3 or 4 character, generic 'tags' that make an Apple file look just like one that came from a Windows PC.
Of course, this made it hard for the 'dumber' PC to figure out what to do with an Apple created file. That's the official reason Apple claims to have dropped the method. I call it dumbing down. Same goes for not showing the suffix by default. But showing them is not especially useful, in my opinion, since the vast majority of computer users have no idea what those suffixes mean, anyway. All they do is click the "Go-Ahead-And-Install-Whatever-You-Want-I-Don't-Want-To-Take-Any-Responsibility" button...
