I don't agree. I've seen many people asking where this feature is so
it shouldn't be made more hidden.

I vote with Anders on keeping this in the UI.

I would like calum's and seth's opinions. I am willing to go along
with any decision they make. I still don't really feel this preference
make sense to include in the ui, since most users won't change it, but
let them comment.

At the very least this preference needs to be removed from nautilus
and instead integrated into gnome control-center (perhaps a desktop
settings capplet). I still don't think it belongs in the ui though...

Hmm, not sure I have enough info to have an informed opinion, to be
honest.  How many people still prefer to use gmc (or something
similar, as gmc was never ported I guess) as their desktop/file
manager?  Anders, what people wanted this option more visible, and
why?  

I do agree that the majority of people probably won't ever change it
though, so it could potentially be tucked away somewhere less
in-your-face.  (To be honest I've never really bought the "remove
advanced things altogether and put them in GConf" argument, though,
that just sounds like UI-design-laziness to me :)

this is fixed in the new preference dialog