Last modified: 2011-03-09 21:14:51 UTC
Interface should be provided to easily assign Anonymous and logged in user to a group. Actually done in DefaultSettings.php with $wgAnonGroupId $wgLoggedInGroupId which is ugly.
Probably need to implement the administration interface to replace DefaultSettings / LocalSettings system.
I think this was dealt with in 1.5.0...
Yes, the functionality you describe has, I believe, been implemented with the MediaWiki 1.5 release, which includes a new system for user rights management. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_rights for more details, including an explanation of how to implement this feature.