It's not a feature so it's a flaw.

You're right that pg did it this way in the beginning to save time but years have gone by and the site is now more central to his business - especially as a tech demo. This back and forth argument presupposes that there isn't a better fix than the naive 'use old-style code' solution.

Anyways, the discussion is worth having. Only by pointing out problems do you fix them.