bug or feature?

[nosp]

On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 18:19, Jess Anderson wrote:
> nosp <nosp at xades.com>:
> >The PAM authentication that allowed you access the first time
> >is cached for a period of time.
> 
> I didn't know that and to me it too seems a misfeature, trading
> a lot of security ...
> 
> >If you start a second r-c-n job within that time period you
> >won't get prompted for a password again.
> 
> ... for a small amount of convenience.

I'm sure that the tradeoff of security for convenience is not to be done
lightly.  Before I start speculating, does anyone know the real
motivation for this decision?  I'd like to understand that before making
up my mind (those who ignore history...).