>The concept of "saving" is deeply ingrained into the user psyche

I beg to differ. :) It's ingrained into _current_ users' psyches. It's most definitely not ingrained into those of new users. And there will be a heck of a lot more new users than current users over time.

>In systems with dedicated "new" and/or "edit" controls to add/change records (aka Edit-on-Request (EOR)) there is nothing wrong with a Save or Undo to book-end the action. In fact, I would think any other metaphore would be counter-intuitive.

I don't believe in an Edit command. When the user makes a change, I put the form into Edit mode automatically, and replace the navigation buttons with OK and Cancel. As I've said, I don't believe Cooper's views apply to record-oriented data entry. I do think they apply to documents, however.

>In applications where I have tried to be "bleeding-edge" and not had dedicated save functions, inevitably "dirty" data gets into the tables. Typos, accidental saves, et al. In a perfect world with perfect users....maybe.

Cooper has something to say about that, too. :) He says that apps should be less vulnerable to bad data. I won't go into all his arguments, but simply recommend reading his book. It will definitely make anyone change at least some of her views on user interface.