But no one besides me had commented or inquired about whether getting this to work would be advantageous, prudent or even sensible.
I don't think there is a fault. As previously mentioned, perhaps you have not considered all the possible ways this "auto-use" could be useful. Many applications, such as Adobe PhotoShop, have plugins folders. You can drop libraries into these folders and they automagically become loaded by the application. This is great as third party users can install plugins very easily.
Is there a manageable security risk, yes (use access permissions!)...but is it cool? Definitely yes. It has applications. So the approach can't be completely wrong.
Anyhow, some approaches (such as using telnet when SSHD is available) are right to question...some are in a gray area, and being pedantic can annoy some folks. I'd prefer to have these folks learn by doing rather than saying no outright. They may know more than the responder in many cases. Conclusions -- Raise potential issues, but avoid calling someone wrong or saying the approach is wrong.
