It's nice that Kate saves backup copies of files after a set interval, but it would also be nice if, after closing a given file, the temporary file associated with it is deleted from the drive. This is standard behavior for all editors and productivity programs I've used that save temporary files. Is there another simple way to get this affect. (I don't consider entering the konsole and doing a manual removal of .tex~ files simple!)

I notice Kile has a "Automatically clean-up files after close" option but it doesn't appear to work (in 2.1 beta anyway). E.g. I've put "*.tex~" in the list and none of those files are removed upon closing or quitting.

you can ask kate to not create a backup file upon saving in its configuration dialog.

I assumed disabling that feature would also disable autosave. Is that not the case?