On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 11:08 AM, PJ Weisberg
<pj@irregularexpressions.net> wrote:
> If the bug didn't exist, the region would still be deactivated as a part of
> the command loop because you've modified the buffer.
That's the part that seemed like a bug to me: the region getting
deactivated as part of the command loop. The text *did* move when I
tried it, but in other editors it would be possible to move it by more
than one tab-stop by pressing TAB multiple times.
Ok, this appears to be a regression in CVS Emacs. Emacs 23.2.1 does indent the region properly, as you say.
Region deactivation is the default behaviour in Emacs for all functions I can think of. It would be surprising if it did something else. You can reactivate the region with C-xC-x.