LP:916922 - Non-existent --defaults-file causes "Program aborted" message but server still starts

In current 5.3, if I run the server with --defaults-file=/path/to/nowhere it will still start:

psergey@pslp2:~/dev2/5.3-look48/sql$ ./mysqld --defaults-file=/path/to/nowhere
Could not open required defaults file: /path/to/nowhere
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted
120116 00:44:24 [Note] PrimeBase XT (PBXT) Engine 1.0.11-7 Pre-GA loaded...
120116 00:44:24 [Note] Paul McCullagh, PrimeBase Technologies GmbH, http://www.primebase.org
InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.3
120116 0:44:24 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
120116 00:44:24 [Note] PBXT: Recovering from 1-43, bytes to read: 33554389
120116 0:44:25 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
120116 00:44:25 [Note] PBXT: Recovering complete at 1-43, bytes read: 33554389
120116 0:44:25 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda.
120116 0:44:27 Percona XtraDB (http://www.percona.com) 1.0.17-13.0 started; log sequence number 5124216676
120116 0:44:27 [Note] Recovering after a crash using tc.log
120116 0:44:27 [Note] Starting crash recovery...
120116 0:44:27 [Note] Crash recovery finished.

I think it should not start in this case.