Is there any reason why an Inactive item can't remain active whilst there is stock. In other words, an item could be made inactive at any time and would stay visible as long as there is stock. This would mean that when an item has been made obsolete from the supplier, I could immediately go to that item and make it inactive and effectively forget about it, safe in the knowledge that once the stock sells through, it will deactive itself.
Currently, the only way I can manage it is to reduce the restock points to the minimum and when it eventually goes out of stock it will get flagged on the PO to reorder at which point I am reminded to deactivate it. It works but it's a bit clunky.