Gmail addresses gone completely dotty 1 Aug 2008

We've just discovered an interesting quirk in Gmail (thanks to Barry Schwarz). From Gmail's Help documentation (emphasis ours):

"Gmail allows only one registration for any given username. Once you sign up for a particular username, any dot or capitalization variations are made permanently unavailable for new registration. If you created yourusername@gmail.com, no one can ever register your.username@gmail.com, or Your.user.name@gmail.com. Furthermore, because Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames, adding or removing dots from a Gmail address won't change the actual destination address. Messages sent to yourusername@gmail.com, your.username@gmail.com, and y.o.u.r.u.s.e.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com are all delivered to your inbox, and only yours."

So what do you think about this feature? On the one hand, it increases the chances that you'll receive mail that was intended to be delivered to you, but was incorrectly addressed. On the other, it increases the amount of spam (and email that was intended for someone else) that you'll receive.