stemNeutral and autoBeamOff makes b always stem down?

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Hi,

if autoBeamOff is used, and stemNeutral, is it true that the note b
will always get the stem down?  Here are two examples which don't look
so good in my opinion:

{ \autoBeamOff g'4 a' b' a' | d''4 d'' a' b' }

Result (stem direction Down or Up):

U U D U | D D U D 

I would expect rather:

U U U U | D D U U

In the first example, the b is framed by all stemUp notes, so it
should probably follow suit.  In the second example, it has a stemUp
note as a neighbour which is surrounded by stemDown notes, so it
should probably flip so that its neighbour is not so lonely.

Of course, I haven't read any of the fine books on musical notation
that are listed in the bibliography of the lilypond manual.  However,
I have a book from 1867 here which has the above "UUUU" and "DDUU"
pattern rather than what lilyponds produces.

My feeling is that the stem of the note on the middle line could
adjust itself more dynamically to the surrounding notes, according to
rules that one may be able to generalize from the two examples above.
Am I making sense?

Thanks,
Marcus