I know it has been rejected and I think it was not given any good reason. Managing dropdownnlist in datagrid is a pain and just not having pair value/text is missing and using "foreign key columns for this" is not an acceptable answer for me.
It should be a basic type of column, not a template, and show a text but be set as a value because we use the text for translation purpose, so the text cannot be the value. Even with the help from your technical support, when you have many of them in one grid, it's takes a long time to code and maintain. Such a common and basic feature should be with the basic controls of the grid.