upgrade to 8.04 asks user to quit all applications too early in the upgrade process

Binary package hint: update-manager

The distribution upgrade process asked me to quit all applications before it started downloading new packages. It then spent 2 hours downloading new packages before doing anything that really required quitting applications. I should be able to use my computer normally until the point where the upgrade actually starts making changes (i.e. only tell the user to quit applications *after* the "Getting new packages" step).

That said, if I were doing an unattended upgrade, I wouldn't want to have to wait around for 2 hours to hit "ok" on the prompt to quit all applications, so I don't have any suggestions for a perfect solution.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 7.10
Release: 7.10
$ apt-cache policy update-manager
update-manager:
  Installed: 1:0.81.3
  Candidate: 1:0.87.27
  Version table:
     1:0.87.27 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
     1:0.87.24 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages
 *** 1:0.81.3 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status