Think you can change this in:

Blog Settings -> [pick blog of choice or blog all] ->Group Perms

Noticed it the other day whilst looking at Judy's problem

PS. You need to be in advanced view.

PPS. You can do this on an individual user basis in User Perms

There's nothing in those perm subtabs about user level though. Except for what you can edit, which I've noticed isn't working correctly either. Meaning when I set a group to be able to edit less than their level it allows someone to edit posts equal to or less than their own level.

So like the group has all permissions except posting private and redirect, and can't edit any category stuff. When a user in the group is level 4 they get no "publish now" feature. When they are level 5 or above they get the button.

Okay got it. In /inc/users/model/_user.class.php find

			case 'edit_timestamp':
				// Global permission to edit timestamps...
				// fp> TODO: merge below
				$perm = ($this->level >= 5);
				break;

Change the level to suit your needs :)

FYI it could have also been accomplished in /inc/items/model/_item.class.php around line 1978 or so but I figured go straight to the root of the 'problem' :D

For some reason, I'd assumed that the different groups equated to the user level --> Administrator being L10, and Basic User being L1. To me, that makes sense as to how I'd expect it to work. I'd have thought there would be something in the Admin side to allow you to control what each user level can do, but from what you say that doesn't seem to be the case.

Yeah User Level and group ID aren't related, meaning you can have a level one person in the admin group, and a level ten person in the basic bloggers group (or whatever Group4 is called by default). I actually thought user level only applied in the case of deciding who can edit posts when you click the advanced tab on the User or Group perms subtab. So I did a quick search of the files and didn't find any other bits that act the way the "publish now" acts, but it looks like the deprecate button doesn't show up for my sample L-1 person. For my needs I don't mind that ... oh wait posting deprecated is not allowed for sample user's group so it makes sense the button is not there.

The more complex the core gets, the harder it is to make an admin area that covers all reasonably realistic possibilities eh?