In answer to your question, that would be asinine. That's one of the few things Apple has (almost) consistently gotten right on their laptops—close the lid, it goes to sleep. Period. I can't describe how frustrating it is to use computers that think they are smarter than you (or are just unable to work properly) and stay on when you close them.
Except, that doesn't happen like you described it. A process can "prevent sleep", at which point closing the lid will still leave the laptop running (you can view apps/processes that do this in Activity Monitor - there is a separate column titled "Preventing sleep").