Stephen Turnbull wrote:

   GNU Emacs made the change (viz. cvs diff -r EMACS_20_2 -r EMACS_20_4
   subr.el) without worrying sufficiently about breaking existing code
   (see Stefan Reichör's post here <uvfxduzt2.fsf@riic.at>, or run
   XEmacs's regression test suite on XEmacs 21.5).  I don't see why that
   should be a barrier to reverting to the old, regular, behavior now.

I did not know the history of the function.  I did not subscribe to
this site four years ago.  If I did I would probably have opposed the
original change back then, which might not have made any difference
anyway.  I am not part of some "Conspiracy" started four years ago as
others seem to suggest.  Anyway, I hope this answers the question of
"And where were you four years ago?" which others asked me.  I did not
subscribe to emacs devel back then.

Sincerely,

Luc.