Omitting chapter stops / selection menu - what's your view?

[ravenus]

There seems to be a new trend of omitting chapter stops or at least a selection menu. I have noticed this in Naked Prey and Dragon Inn from Eureka (Masters of Cinema), BFI's release of The Day The Earth Caught Fire, Sony UK did this for Sense & Sensibility and Remains of The Day.

I have to ask, is this something so technically demanding or expensive to implement that studios would wilfully choose to leave it out of the authoring process? There are many reasons why we may not manage or even choose to watch a movie in its entirety in one go - Sometimes I fall asleep while watching a movie because I'm too tired and go back to it later, sometimes I may want to watch / show off a particular scene. In such cases, a chapter selection menu is a great convenience, more tangibly useful than a slipcover or a steelbook.

I'm having a poll to see how many people share this view and conversely, how many think it's not relevant. Please vote your preference and hopefully at least the smaller / boutique labels will get some useful feedback from us about this practice.