>Even today the only way to make this work in Linux...

What? I'm running Arch with i3 right now, and networkmanager (with nm-applet for my tray) is doing just fine at finding and associating with networks. `systemctl suspend` suspends my system as desired. I'm sure if I spent some time looking, I could bind it to my power button or laptop lid.

If your complaint is that user shouldn't have to use the command line to suspend their device - I've used Ubuntu versions since 12.04 and they all have this sort of thing built in and intuitively accessible.

Were you referring to something besides network and power management?