I am getting a message "can't open because PowerPC applications are no longer supported" What do I do about these programs?

At first. I didn't agree with the OP. But, I changed my mind. The warning should havecome from Apple. This is not a great effort to include the information, in the ReadMe, and on the Apple Lion Site. JMHO.

That said, I'm OK not having Rosetta. I set up a partition for the one PPC game I do play, and that worked for ME. May not for others.

Point 2. Novices and legacy are not how any computer company should base their future. It is what it is. This moves forward. Again. JMHO.

And how would anyone know to do that without knowing that PowerPC apps would no longer be supported and without Apple communicating that PowerPC apps would no longer be supported?

Apple did communicate that fact some months ago.

As others have pointed out, one would know that PowerPC apps are no longer supported by taking the time to read even one of the dozens of very informative articles on getting ready for OS X Lion that have been appearing all over the internet for months now.

Furthermore, it should not be a surprise to any experienced Mac user that compatibility issues of one kind or another are always a possibility when a new version of OS X comes out. And anyone who is not an experienced Mac user should think twice before jumping into the fire—which is what you're doing when you install a brand new, untested version of OS X on the first day of its release. I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems, but it's not Apple's fault that you jumped in without any preparation.

Out of curiosity, where did Apple release the no-Rosetta information? I can find tons of articles from 3rd party sites about the end of PPC compatibility but none link to anything from Apple.

IMO, using the excuse that the information is on macrumors or tuaw or 9to5mac etc is not a valid if there is no annoucement from the company itself.

Honestly this is why businesses gravitate toward the Windows market. You can still run legacy 16 bit applications under 64 bit Win 7 (although some don't work). Apple has never been like that. They've constantly have outright dropped support. They're a forward thinking company. If you knew that past compatibilty was important, and you've known how Apple has been in the past, you should have been weary about doing the upgrade.

And yes they have been talking about dropping Rosetta support since 10.6 has come out. There was even doubts whether 10.6 would support it. You had to have known this was coming.

"And yes they have been talking about dropping Rosetta support since 10.6 has come out." - Please someone, anyone, point me to an official apple press release/faq page/whatever that says this? I know Apple has a history of dropping legacy support. I am just really curious where this is said.

I love reading news sites pre-OS release but until I see something from Apple, it's all rumors.

Apple releases this information to its developers - the people who write the software in question - so that they (the developers) can update their software for compatibility with the new OS. The developers, then, are responsible for providing their users with updated software that meets the requirements of the current operating system. When users bought software more than five years ago for the then-current architecture, they were given no promise of compatibility with future operating systems by either the developer or Apple. If they've chosen not to update their software through the years, that's their choice, but they should not expect that it will continue to work indefinitely, or that it's Apple's responsibility to support it. If people are running PowerPC software on an Intel machine that is running a version of the Mac OS that is able to upgrade to Lion, they have updated their hardware and OS in the intervening time since they bought said PowerPC-based software. I just don't buy the claim that such persons would have had no idea that support for PowerPC software could eventually be ended.

Note that I'm on record above saying that I do think Apple could easily have put a mention of this in the tech specs (as well as many other things people are annoyed about). But I also don't think that it's reasonable to suggest that people shouldn't read the internet beyond Apple's website to find out how an upgrade will affect them, especially anyone with the years of experience with Apple that a PowerPC user would have.

I'm not sure that Apple did announce in banner headlines that OS X Lion would not support PowerPC apps. But anyone who buys any computer-related item without making sure that it is compatible with their system runs the risk of having issues. It would have taken you all of five minutes to Google "OS X Lion" and learn all you needed to know before installing Lion. It is unreasonable to blame Apple for your own lack of due diligence. As I said above, software compatibility issues are always possible with any new version of OS X. This should not be news to anyone.

As someone who has only just migrated to Apple, had definitely got the impression this change would be completely straightforward and is only moderately computer literate I would really like to know what if anything one can do to make an elderly but immensely useful software programme useable again.

I agree. Apple should have warned people about PPC applications. Its called "communicating". Costs Apple nothing to add a note on the Lion installation page of the App Store.

Apple DO know what software people have before installing Lion. It is bound to be an OS that runs PPC applications, and Apple know that Lion will not. If I bought a product, a car, a garden tool, etc. and was not told that it would not run on petrol or diesel, or not cut grass, I would be astonished.

To answer the OP "What to do with these PPC programs", do what I have done: clone a bootable copy of the previous (pre-Lion) OS (using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) on to an external Firewire drive (not expensive, and partitioned in DiskUtility as GUI), and install Lion on the internal HD. When I need to run PPC applications, I restart the iMac on the external drive and all the PPC apps work.

That worked for me, using OS 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"). However, as time goes on, a new Mac bought in the future might not be able to run Snow Leopard which Apple might regard as legacy. Need to check.

have you ever found a solution to your problem? i still design in Quark and just bougnt a new 17" mac book pro and specifically asked if i would be able to run all my old programs on the new computer and was told "yes". I asked if i would have any conflicts with the Lion system and wasn't told anything about this. Does anyone know how i can run my quark 6.5 on Lion?

just bougnt a new 17" mac book pro and specifically asked if i would be able to run all my old programs on the new computer and was told "yes".

Who did you ask? Someone at an Apple Store? If so, you need to complain to management at that store, as that sort of unqualified answer is simply unacceptable.

There is no solution to running old PowerPC apps on Lion... it simply cannot be done. And you cannot downgrade a new computer that ships with Lion to an older system. You'll need to stick with your older hardware, and either update Quark to a version that will work on Lion or find a replacement for Quark.