It is not a bug, it was changed because the other behaviour gave other problems, such as not being able to use the attribute as title of the object.
Re: Question 2: If this is this a wanted feature, where can I change this.
There is not an INI setting for this as of now. However if you are really interested in this you should add a suggestion for it in the bug system, we can then have a look at it for one of the next 3.6 releases.