I understand where they're coming from - browsers shouldn't let websites just play sound automatically because it is annoying as hell. I hate Flash sites that do that. So drawing the line somehow is tough, I guess.
Yeah, unfortunately there's no way for the browser to know whether it's looking at a website (which should never play audio at you) or a Web Application (which might need to play audio with impunity).
It's the same with every other browser trick that gets abused on people's MySpace pages. There's a real reason to use that stuff, but only some of the time.
