Terry,
   I would not miss the feature at all this is very old school Unix like and most people find it confusing.  At my job I tend to provide Python support to my co-workers and have had many questions about it. In addition I think #13504 meta issue provides even more evidence that removing the tear off menus would be a good thing.  Something to consider with IDLE is it is often the first thing a user sees when using Python and first impressions count in most circumstances. IDLE could be much improved and Roger Serwy has a good start on improvements with his IdleX project.  Thanks for the review and I for one would appreciate this patch getting committed.