The already existing uses of `prefix-needed` are ones that I don't think
setting it to false would cause any serious problems. But for this I
think it's fairly dangerous
Hm. I haven't applied the patch to see what effect it has, but it appears it would cause the "./" to be prefixed onto the command word? If so, there's visible feedback; if not, the danger would be of invoking a command that's in $path instead of the intended local executable.
So I'm not strongly concerned about danger; what is the behavior you'd find troubling?
My question would be whether this needs any further changes to interoperate with prefix-hidden.