That's exactly the reason, and it's more legitimate than you give it credit for. I can foresee numerous situations where users disable location tracking (in the name of saving battery) without realising the effect it will have (rendering a location-based app useless).
A nice middle ground would be to keep App Ops, but hidden away somewhere, much like the Developer Tools are.
A nice middle ground would be to keep App Ops, but hidden away somewhere, much like the Developer Tools are.