I just got back from the Europe SPSS user's conference.  A number of new things are planned for 16.0 that were publically revealed at the conference.  Perhaps the most interesting was a third language to be available in the syntax window through the "revolution" that began with 14.0.  The popular stats language R will be available with a free plugin in the syntax window.  More on this soon as a more detailed post.  Also, the EXTENSION command was announced, which would allow a python type to write a new command for a friend that only knows syntax.  It seems to me that this eliminates another of the dwindling reasons to hold on to macros, as it seems like a "macro call" to me.  Pretty cool stuff.