Timothy,
You are indeed correct - the PPruNe log-in cookie is now an environmentally friendly bio degradable version.
No waffle so here are the reasons:
Firstly our core readership, those for whom the site was originally set up, log on from offices, hotels, bars, and internet cafes. There's a long history of forgetting to log off and opening the site to other, often troublemaking posters.
Secondly we have a very heavy admin postbag, the joy of answering which falls upon my remarkably sturdy yet careworn shoulders. A consistent 30% of the mail concerns forgotten/lost passwords. Therefore the timeout on the cookie has been introduced to re-introduce many readers to the joys of having to remember their own password rather than me
It'll piss off a few, lead to a short term flood of forgotten password stuff for me to deal with but should pay off in the end.
Then again Danny and I both have been wrong many times in the past
Regards
Rob