With galleries and shops in particular, I can see the need for an item to expire.

The thing is, with WordPress being opensource, and with the feature being able to be implemented, it may be that it is really something to occupy those with the technical competence to use when they see fit and the not-so-competent to use a plugin.

I've read where it can be implemented via metadata so it doesn't seem we need to expand core to 20 MB (isn't it that already?) and include Jquery and Node.js.

Maybe it's just a matter of locating the correct documentation more easily.

I'm trying "Gtuk Unpublish Posts" (plugin) and so far, so good. Haven't had anything due for unpublish yet, but all should go well.

You don't get to tell the devs to make something happen, they're not your employees. They work on what they care deeply about, what inspires them, and what they want to. It's the way of Open Source :) So if you can't do it, you have to look around for someone else who shares your passion and can.

Many scenarios warrant a post expiration...let's make it happen in 2017!

They have some issues which would cause problems in WP based on current expectations.

* Menus pointing to the post aren't corrected
* Sometimes the articles still show - https://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=600418
* What 'error' page do people see? (This seems ... vague)

It isn't so much bloat as it is making proper decisions. Again, it has to be decided what happens when a post is unscheduled.

* Who should see it? (Joomla says anyone who has access to see it when logged in, so for WP that would be the author, editors, and admins)
* What should NON logged in people see? A 'this post has been removed' or a 404 or what?
* What should logged in people see to understand the post is 'hidden'?
* How do we address menus? (probably the same way we handle them now - when pages vanish, the menu items are removed).

We can make hooks for unpublish, same as we do for publish, to allow plugins to flush caches etc, but remember that wp-cron is not a silver bullet for a lot of people :) You would end up with people visiting the site and hitting the page either on the unpublished moment or shortly there-after and that would trigger the unpubishing. Which means they would see the page that shouldn't be for longer than you want.

Not insurmountable, just someone needs to come up with a proper plan of attack vs just saying 'We need this thing!' :)

This is like moving into a new house and finding there are no shower curtain rods. That's annoying but understandable.

I would agree with that. I would also say that not having post expiration as a core WP function is annoying, but in this case...not understandable.

Obviously this will never happen and I can certainly continue to use a plugin to accomplish this basic function that should be core...though I very often scratch my head and wonder why.

No analogy is perfect, not even yours.

This is like moving into a new house and finding there are no shower curtain rods. That's annoying but understandable.