I would also point out that internal messages such as pd-dsp-started don't really come with an expected behavior for user patches. Saying how it works is a "bug" belies that fact that I don't believe it was ever intended to be used for this and just because it can be grabbed via a [r] also doesn't guarantee anything.
The method you point out is shown in the help patch of [samplerate~] without any reference that it should be considered a bug or temporary measure.
This is also why it's so hard to change almost *any* behavior within Pd as you can never really be 100% certain you aren't breaking someone's end use case.
Do you feel this regression condition is much different in other software?
best, P