When I try to publish articles, after you took away the Publish button (that's another click you added to the process btw), I would want to place it at a location that I can reach quickly, without making a mistake. Currently, the Publish option is second last. The UI that is most commonly used should be placed at the top (depending on the profile of the user). Or if that is not possible, keep it at the extreme end. This way, I can quickly move to the end of the list, and not worry about stopping just short.

Maybe just allow content creators to position each item in the list to where they are most comfortable with.