Erik:
Thanks for the information.

I agree at 99% with you: the compilation process is very fast and this makes a linker less important. However the two-step process (compiler + linker) is useful if you own a large library of object modules, but not the corresponding source files.
It would be also useful for the integration of modules created using different programming languages. But, unfortunately, there is a lack of standards in this field and you often have to use a specific linker with a given compiler.

Alfredo.