Am I correct in thinking that the proposed change only affects the use case where a user types exit in to the REPL and hits return? And that any other case is unaffected?

I can only imagine that the majority of users who type exit in to the interpreter are expecting the REPL to exit.

Stargirl do I recall you mentioning (perhaps on twitter) that there are threads online of users expressing frustration with this feature? It would be helpful to see what users have said about it.

I would push back against the idea that this is about laziness. It sounds like this is about reducing user confusion.