pre-pending of PATH by macports: normal conflicts?

[Brian Barnes]

I noticed the following today:

nell:/private/etc barnes$ locate periodic | grep bin
/opt/local/bin/periodic
/opt/local/var/macports/software/openmotif/2.3.0_2/opt/local/bin/ 
periodic
/opt/premp/bin/periodic
/opt/premp/var/macports/software/openmotif/2.3.0_2/opt/local/bin/ 
periodic
/usr/sbin/periodic
nell:/private/etc barnes$ sudo which periodic
/opt/local/bin/periodic

this is, of course, due to the prepending of $PATH by macports  
(1.6.0) in .profile:

# Your previous .profile  (if any) is saved as .profile.mpsaved
# Setting the path for MacPorts.
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

I believe the 'periodic' commands of openmotif and /usr/sbin are  
extremely different ;).   Is this sort of thing known/expected?  Are  
there other conflicts with system commands?   Or is this perhaps an  
openmotif port bug?  Just curious.

thanks,

Brian