RE: Remove * characters from the front of variable docstrings

[Drew Adams]

> > I was glad to see the "*" chars finally disappearing in 
> > trunk r107813.

Why?  Who were those `*' chars hurting?

> I wasn't, FWIW.  Suddenly "M-x set-variable" doesn't work with
> variables I was used to since about forever.

I agree with Eli.  I pointed out the problem prior to the change:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2012-02/msg00419.html

Others in the thread also disagreed with this change.  Here's a XEmacs
perspective:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2012-02/msg00455.html

Note that that thread _started_ with the innocuous _question_ of which Emacs
versions require `*' here.  Some 3rd-party Emacs code tries to maintain
compatibility with older Emacs versions.  So it still uses `*' in defcustoms,
which is perfectly normal.

But now you have introduced the bug (still not fixed or even responded to) that
for such definitions the `*' shows up _as part of the help text_ when you use
`C-h v':
http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=10475

Yet the fix for that bug is trivial, as the bug report mentions:
(when (eq ?* (elt doc 0)) (setq doc  (substring doc 1)))

On n'arrete pas le progres...  Aren't there more important things to work on
than introducing such bugs and additional hurdles for 3rd-party code?