dr_bernie, the mipmap filtering could have been introduced as a prelude to some really advanced new features.  Mipmapping isn't useless these days, with new technology.  It helps in voxel sculpting, because mipmapped alpha brushes are MUCH smoother and artifact free than alpha brushes without it.  It's actually incorporated into many of today's advanced sculpting software, like 3D Coast, Zbrush, and others.  So it could have been added because they plan on incorporating some kind of voxel sculpting with super high resolution support, and alpha-brush system.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.