We need the ability to lock down the features and configuration on a server. That is not to say that there is a need to support the implied capabilities given a set of applications. However, that would require some processing of the deployment in order to determine what capabilities were in use, including resources. So, if there is an abstraction like:
<applications>
<web-app name="my-store" context-root="/the-best-store" ...>
</web-app>
</applications>
how much work has to be done to adequately identify the required capabilities? We can define the default capabilities implied by the various application types, but ultimately the user should be able to trim that down if they are not using certain features.
I still think the best comprimise would be to have profile definitions in the domain in terms of the required capabilities potentially simplified by having implied capabilities associated with each application type that could be overriden by the admin.