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Thanks for the clarification. This definitively looks like it is the case.
If someone from Altera is reading, why not placing a suggestion in the Quartus II manual? Something like, in the page about Verilog 2008 support "We suggest users to use System Verilog for high level language features".
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What "high level language" features do you want? there is nothing that cannot be done with VHDL 1993. Most VHDL 2008 features are there really to catch up in a simulation space when compared to SV. Quartus already supports the more useful features of 2008, the features you are suggesting dont really add any value to synthesis.