Im not in denial about it happening.. However if you were to say it increases performance/economy/cost of manufacture or something along those lines then I would agree. But all your telling me is that they are changing it so its easier to work on. Surely if its going to have "fitted for life timing chain" then why would they need to make this part of the engine easier to access??
OK, look at it another way. On the current Mk5 GTI engine, the timing belt is a real ba$tard to change, because the position of the non-removable top engine mount. Now, someone down the line of said GTI ownership WILL have to pay for the belt to be changed. Maybe not the first owner, maybe not a fleet owner - someone, somewhere down the line will. Now, easy jobs can be done quicky, attracting cheap labour costs - whereas difficult jobs invariably take longer, hence greater labour costs. Now, those "potential", or future costs will have a "reverse" effect, by filtering upwards (for want of a better phrase) and denting trade-in or 2nd hand values. People will naturally make price adjustments if they know about an upcomming high maintenance item. It is this same issue which plagues V6 Vectra prices!
Now, to combat the timing belt maintenance costs issue, VW decide to get rid of. Fine, but they need another way of driving the cams - gears?? Maybe, but a bit overkill on a straight four - chains?? Yup, they work fine on the latest V8 and V10, and the Japs have been using chains for years on their high revving bikes (my CBR6 red lines at 14,000 rpm, and still sounds sweet). As an added bonus of using chains, they are both physically smaller (which pleases car designers, who are always thankful of having more space to play with), and are (generally) maintenance free, which keeps users happy.
As for a timing belt benifiting the fleet market.. From what I know about the fleet market, not many of them are around for long enough to warrant an new timing belt.
Fairy-nuff. Many fleets get rid of just before any "biggie" services are due, but this still has a knock-on effect at denting residuals.
And you still have to keep private buyers happy!
I am not saying I know much on the subject.. in fact quite the opposite. But I know my fair share about business, if I was the CEO of VW and my head engine development team told me the reason to introduce a new engine was because the current one is slightly difficult to work on certain areas... then Im sure you know where I would tell you to go! 
Give me any of the reasons above... and I will listen, but not to make a mechanic or tech's life a little easier.
OK, yup. In it's most simplistic way, it would seem daft to develop a "new" engine. But in reality, it is probably the same block but a different head. Secondly, the VW Group, like most automotive companies, are a company which likes to showcase its new technologies - look at the Veyron, or R8, or Bentley Continental GT, or the Lambo Revention. And finally, VW want to "please" their "customers" - VW wont want owners b!tching away because of nightmare maintenance issues - and cam-belt changes have been a general bug-bear for some time now.
In addition to which I would they would be cutting off another of the reoccuring revenue streams of their many dealerships. Just my view on things as head of VW 
Erm, that is called "evolution".
Just because you no longer need a wheelwright to "tune" the spokes on your wire wheels - hasn't made car companies and stealerships go out of business. Same goes for changing contact breaker points, condensors and HT leads, or cleaning float chambers on carbs, or oiling SU dashpots.
At the end of the day, stealerships will ALWAYS find new ways of making money. To take VW as a specific example, they "champion" this "LongLife" servcing regime, on the promise that your car won't need servicing for 2 years or 20k miles, yet every time you go into the stealerships, they are either pushing "specials" such as "winter service", "holiday service", "air con service", etc, etc. And no matter how good we'd like to think our beloved, high quality german engineered cars are, they always do well with warranty work. Owners still need spares, be they for routine maintenance, a bottle of top-up oil, some mudflaps, headlamp beam benders, a new mobile fone cradle, etc. And finally, accidents still do happen. Accident damage repairs are an absolute huge area in the motor trade, and even if the main stealer doesn't actually get the physical repair job (instead going to an insurance "select repairer" type), the main stealer will still get to supply all the body panels, broken headlamps, radiator grilles, etc - because UK auto insurance states that only genuine OEM parts are used, even if it is repaired in say the Nationwide body centre.
HTH,
