frank26080115:
What if I wanted the .elf file to make a .lst file or .map file? or to run avr-size on it to know how much static RAM is used? What if I needed the .eep file to load into pre-initialize EEPROM?
I say, if you even KNOW what the .lst .map and .eep files are, chances are good you're not the target user for the Arduino IDE. I hope the development team keeps a clear focus on the beginning user. Perhaps one nice thing would be to provide a nice "graduation path" for people to gracefully move on once they're advanced users.