> I would have thought so, too, but this is what it says in the man page
> for 1.5.1_BETA...
> 
>      If the option -h is not given, unless the -H or -L option is set,
>      chmod on a symbolic link always succeeds and has no effect.

Perhaps the author of that change could provide the reason?  I don't
believe that it is required for standards conformance, and it is
wildly counter-intuitive as well as atypical for "Unix-like" systems.

Regards,

Giles