I think it makes a lot of sense to only have the Cord Inspector available during Edit Mode, like Ico said, play/run mode should not have other things drawing on the CPU.
sure. i was rather saying that i find it weird that if i am in edit mode and press Ctrl-R i get the cord inspector, whereas if i am in run mode and press Ctrl-R i get nothing. i would expect it to flip to edit mode and turn the inspector on. (similar to what happens if i press Ctrl-1 in run mode)
What you suggested is actually rather simple (boils basically down to one line of code). The difference between Ctrl+r and Ctrl+1 (object creation) is that former is a state, while latter a one-time event. So, for instance if in the current iteration you wish to have cord monitoring on at all times during the editing process it simply requires one Ctrl+R press at any point in time (regardless whether the editor is on or off), after which it stays on once again regardless of the editor's state so from that point on it only requires a Ctrl+e and you are ready to go. That said, rigging Ctrl+r to also open editor makes sense only in the case both the editor and Cord Inspector are off.
Latest version now includes this little alteration.
HTH
Ico