Moodle has always allowed access to activities and resources within topics greater than the number set in Course Settings. This 'feature' (if that is what it is) has allowed (static) linking to these activities, effectively making them hidden from students unless they use the specific link. This has allowed or encouraged (in Moodle 1.9 with inferior navigation built in) the building of HTML navigation that is entirely custom to the specific course.

Eg. Only the section 0 is displayed and all other nav is hand built in HTML. This results in inconsistant user experience, accessibility issues, broken links and frustration. In moving to Moodle 2.x we would like to provide standard Nav by the system & theme, and prevent the copious static linking of custom navigation.

Suggestion: Give Moodle administrators the option to make 'Orphaned' activities/resources unavailable to students entirely, or make this a capability option for all roles. (It should not be an option in the course settings).