That's not really defensible as an excuse, especially considering Apple's grooming of users to believe that they never need to quit applications.

All Apple had to do was add a "more" indicator at the end of the area, at the very least. Or... to give all applications' entries equal footing, collapse them all into a disclosure control once there are too many to show.

But no... once again, a simple and fair solution eludes Apple's "designers."