Previously, some of the methods in this object were impossible to achieve with the earlier versions of ColdFusion. It was possible to code an end request function, but only a few programmers made use of it. We find that by using this object many more people are taking advantage of these features.
The new methods that are added have the ability to run code specifically when a session ends, and when an application ends. This allows us to do things that we could not do previously. We can keep a record of how long a user is online without having to access the database with each request. When the session starts, you can store it in the session scope. When the session ends, you can take all that information and store it in the session log table if logging is desired in your site.