precedence of auto-mode-alist and magic-fallback-mode-alist

[Stephen Berman]

On GNU Emacs 23.0.50.3 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.0) of
2007-11-29 on escher I do the following:

1. emacs -Q
2. M-x browse-url-emacs RET http://www.gnu.org RET
3. After a short time a buffer www.gnu.org pops up containing the HTML
source of the gnu.org home page.  This buffer is in Org mode, because
auto-mode-alist takes precedence over magic-fallback-mode-alist (if I
save the buffer as "testme" then C-x C-f opens the file in html-mode).

I don't remember if cases like this were considered when this precedence
relation was established.  If not, is the above an argument against this
precedence relation, or just evidence that we can't always DTRT, or is
it a bug that can be fixed while retaining the current precedence
relation?

Steve Berman