CPP13 — Construction of _var types

the spec says (on page 1-23):

The T* constructor creates a T_var that, when destroyed, will
delete the storage pointed to by the T* parameter. The parameter
to this constructor should never be a null pointer. Compliant
implementations are not required to detect null pointers passed
to this constructor.

This seems broken for two reasons:

• In an environment without real exceptions, null pointers must
  be returned for variable-length types in the presence of an
  exception. So if I write

Foo_var fv(some_ref->op(my_corba_environment));

and op() raises an exception (which will be returned in the
environment), I'm hosed.

• The assignment operator permits assignment of null, but the
  constructor doesn't. This is inconsistent, if nothing else.

It seems that disallowing initialization from null pointer is some
historical hangover? I think the restriction should be removed.