Line break bug?

[Thomas Watson Steen]

As far as I can read on blogs around the internet, this "bug" is not  
new:

foo
bar

is translated to: "<p>foo bar</p>" and not "<p>foo<br />bar</p>".

After searching the web for an answer it seems that the missing line- 
break functionality is there on purpose.

What is the reason for this?
... and is there a way to "fix" it?

/watson
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