I'm just suprized this type of bug has been allowed to linger. I first noticed it a few versions ago. Shit like this is why Open Source will never truly take off as a majority movement. bargain-basement systems with only 256 or 512MB of ram can't afford having 150 of that eaten up by ghost processes that aren't even supposed to be running. It's an embarrassment, really, to see a programmer not even know how to accurately track the memory usage of the program and return it all to the system when it exits.
Even in the open-source movement, you get what you pay for.