[wvenable]

Yeah I kind of disagree that "being flexible in what you accept when possible" is a benefit to the user. It's just more complexity pushed down to the user that is unnecessary.

In this example, I'm not sure why it's the functions responsibility to support all of these options when the user is perfectly capable of manipulating strings and arrays.

[jbm]

While I agree with you, I have seen practical cases where sensing an array of items in the get parameter of a web server is handled differently, similarly to what the parent comment mentioned.