>  	/home/paul/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:\
>  	/usr/pkg/bin:/usr/pkg/sbin:/usr/games:/usr/local/bin: \
>  	/usr/local/sbin:.

I once had my life (well, life of my livelihood) threatened by a
very .....imposing (politically correct) female system administrator for
putting "." in my $PATH.   

It not being present overrides one of the natural security mechanisms
present in UNIX-like environments.

~BAS