Deactivating accounts

Several people have asked me how to deactivate accounts, to make that a feature etc. I need to ask everyone this - why? What is the possible point of such a feature, compared with just leaving the site? There's nothing stopping you leaving without deactivating your account, so why not do that? I don't mean to be rude to users who are genuinely asking for a new feature, I just fully fail to understand the purpose of it.

admin: Well, there's always a emotional part of something. It makes you feel as if you'e turned away and will never come back. I mean, I don't want to leave, I love it here but there are those who do and need to have the emotional side of that removed.

Pinkie: But the site isn't going to go away. What you've done on the site isn't going away either. Nor would your ability to take actions on the site in future really be diminished. So I don't understand how the act of "deactivating" an account actually removes any emotional baggage.

admin: I guess so, if it's hard. I don't really care ether way.

I don't understand the whole deactivating thing either. Just never log back in.

JV-Stalin: Well just don't do that with edeb8.

JV-Stalin: I don't ether, I'm playing devil's advocate.