Tom,
I agree with you that documenting existing implementations is the right
thing to do. Even though we didn't use the 8th bit in either of the
implementations I have been involved with, I still think this change
is a good idea.
To repeat your summary once again: This change allows implementors to
conform to the RFC2130 recommendation of using UTF-8 as the default
without breaking any existing implementations -- a compelling argument
in my mind.
Thanks,
Angelo