If this is by design (urgh) then at least a warning should be issued to warn the user about the option being ignored.
If it *was* an explicit design decision, it seems to have been overturned.
$ bzr log -r -1 --short --show-ids 5031 Canonical.com Patch Queue Manager 2010-02-11 [merge] revision-id:<email address hidden> (vila) Don't add conflict related files unless explicitly required
Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.
If it *was* an explicit design decision, it seems to have been overturned.
$ bzr log -r -1 --short --show-ids id:<email address hidden>
5031 Canonical.com Patch Queue Manager 2010-02-11 [merge]
revision-
(vila) Don't add conflict related files unless explicitly required