The reason that I was given at the IAEI conference to review the 2011 NEC was that there are switches available that require a grounded conductor and in most cases they ended up using the ground wire to complete the circuit. Add to that the number of times that a homeowner decides to add a receptacle into a switchbox and the CMP decided that the addition of a neutral wire was cheap insurance to allow a proper installation in all cases.
I had surmised that the code change was looking into the future to accomodate home automation, occupancy sensors and the like. It is dissapointing to hear that it was done to dumb down our installations to accomodate future additions by unqualified persons.
