Re: etags.el tags-search use global syntax table

[Richard Stallman]

    A reasonable compromise would be using for searching the same syntax
    table of the buffer that is current when the tags-search command is
    issued.

That is not always right.  If you want to fix this, I'm sure you could
make etags first look up auto-mode-alist manually, without actually setting
the major mode, then have its own alist mapping mode functions into
syntax tables.

Or it could actually apply the major mode.  That might still be a lot
faster than visiting the file.  If (get MODE 'mode-class) is `special'
then it would not apply the major mode.

You could try that, and see if the slowdown is enough to be a real
reason not to do it.