The workflow to export the image as a raster is terribly inefficient for anyone who wants to simply export the final image. For example, the fastest way to export an image originally loaded from disk seems to be:

0. Open an existing image (JPG/TIFF/GIF/PNG), make some changes.
1. Ctrl-Shift-E (opens Export dialog)
2. Alt-e (to accept the filename and continue to the Export dialog)
3. Alt-r (to accept the replacement confirmation dialog)
4. Alt-e (to confirm the image quality dialog for JPEG)

Then, to close the image:

5. Alt-F4 (to close the window)
6. Alt-d (to discard "changes", even though the file has been saved...)

I do this *a lot* and it is excessive (especially in comparison to the older versions of GIMP). Understandably, some people may have been confused about the older way to save.

Fortunately, with software, it doesn't have to be an either-or scenario.

As a feature request, it would be nice to have an option--for advanced users to enable--that reverts to older behaviour. Here is the workflow that would be maximally efficient:

0. Open an existing image (JPG/TIFF/GIF/PNG), make some changes.
1. Ctrl-Shift-E (exports in default quality for JPG, marks image as saved).
2. Alt-F4 closes the window (without confirmation).

Six steps has been reduced to two.

While there exists a plug-in to save as JPG, it seems useless for other file formats:

http://www.gimphelp.org/python_save_as_jpg.shtml
http://www.gimphelp.org/saveasjpg.shtml

Enabling "fast export" could be an option in the preferences.