Have user levels (0-10) finally been done away with? If not, what exactly do they still control?

And, if they are still going to be around in 1.8+ (they're still there as of today) then can you put the explanation of what they do on the User page itself instead of linking to an obsolete manual page? Also, you might want to move its position from being the very first item (and thus seemingly very important) to somewhere less important on the User page.

I'm trying to write this up for the wiki page so I thought I'd ask what the latest plans are. Thanks a lot!