I hope they don't completely give up... after doing some research, I found that the dev tools kit includes an app called Quartz Debug that enables some sort of resolution independence. After downloading the tool kit and using the QD, I discovered that as of Snow Leopard, Quartz Debug no longer enables scaling to less than 1.00 (ie. .90-.95 like I do on MS Windows).
I expect this means that when Apple ultimately implements this functionality in the OS, it will only work to make things bigger- which is great for those with the super hi rez 27 and 30" monitors - but does not allow me to get more stuff on my smallish 23" 1920x1080 monitor
.