(also responding to #1)
> I guess if this is a bug, it seems a rather benign one.
At one time, it was an unintended yet harmless laxity (except to those sharp-eyed enough to notice and find reason to think or report it as wrong.)
At present, it is intended behavior because, by the time it was discovered, there were an unknown number of SQLite clients who might have become reliant on the laxity. ("Reliant" in the sense of being inconvenienced by a "fix".)
We consider this better left undocumented. Encouraging creation of not-quite-SQL or cluttering the docs and syntax diagrams is too high a price to pay for the negligible benefit to library users.
I hope nobody is disappointed, and please continue filing bug reports.