Where are the Publishing Tabs?

Question

For 10 years I have been waiting for InDesign to add in real publishing tabs instead of word processing tabs. I had really hoped that CS6 would have it. But there is no mention of this most basic of publishing features. Will we ever see this basic time-saving feature included?
Publishing tabs have a start and a stop. When text goes past the stop, it wraps back to the beginning of the tab. When you press return the cursor jumps to the next line in the tab. When you press tab the cursor jumps back to the top of the next tab so the top lines all align. It really saves a LOT of time having to break, return, and tab text that is too long for a tab column.

Answer 1

Like nearly everyone else here on the forums I'm a customer, too (and I have no affiliation with Adobe beyond my volunteer status here, before you start saying I'm representing the corporate interest). Your proposal wouldn't benefit me one whit, or at least not nearly enough to make me want to forgo something else, like better footnotes, that HUNDREDS, perhaps thousands, of users have been clamoring for for years.
Features cost money. Adobe has a budget for each product and each release. That budget is never large enough to do everything that everyone (including, by the way, a lot of people who DO work for Adobe) would like to see, so things get prioritized and decisions are made based on the waht the perceived benefit will be to the largest user segement. For everything that makes the cut there is something else that doesn't.
If you want to make a case for why this particular feature should become a part of a future version (and Dov, I don't buy the back-porting argument here -- span/split columns is an example of a new feature that just disappears and there's no reason for me to think the limited depth tabs couldn't just be converted to regular tabs and let the user straighten it out if they're foolish enough to back-port), then file a feature request, and be sure to explain how this has an economic impact on a large user segment.
Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form
And yes, features do get added based on that form. It just doesn't always happen, nor does it happen overnight.