There had been several reports about the behaviour of $* in constructs like that. If I remember correctly, Khaled stated that he'd rather not fiddle with this identifier any more, as "fixing" this or that quirk will likely break scripts that rely on the very quirk (and/or will produce other quirks). In other words, he had to make a decision, and decided on continuity over consistency... Keep in mind that $* is around for a *very* long time; superseded by the consistent, more versatile and first of all: documented goto- and while constructs.
(Q: Maybe I'm plain dopey... how do I search the forums for "$*"? )
