Is ~/Applications new with Lion? I've seen a number of references to a folder at ~/Applications, including in a comment on this question. This prompted me to open my home folder on my Lion installation to have a look, and sure enough, there it is, complete with its own folder icon. Checking another machine which is running Snow Leopard showed no such folder.

So, am I right to assume that this is new with Lion, and is the recommended location for self-installed apps? I never have liked cluttering up the system Applications folder with extraneous software, and for that reason store most non-bundled apps in a self-created ~/My Apps folder. That has the advantage of being assignable to the Finder window sidebar without ambiguity, which is more than can be said for ~/Applications.

Finally, as I write this I wonder if the thinking behind ~/Applications is that apps stored there will appear in Launchpad?
~\Applications isn't created during the installation of the OS, you have to create it by yourself. Once you create it, it is recognized as an "application folder" and the Finder will show the proper icon for the folder.

It has been like this since Tiger, at least. I'm not aware if Lion creates it automatically as mine was already there when I upgraded to Lion.