lynx-dev HTML4.0 and default charset

[Alan J. Flavell]

Greetings,

In HTML4.0 section 5.2.2 there's a rather odd sentence; I'd better
quote the complete paragraph so as not to take it out-of-context:

 The HTTP protocol ([RFC2068], section 3.7.1) mentions ISO-8859-1
 as a default character encoding when the "charset" parameter is
 absent from the "Content-Type" header field. In practice, this
 recommendation has proved useless because some servers don't allow a
 "charset" parameter to be sent, and others may not be configured to
 send the parameter. Therefore, user agents must not assume any
 default value for the "charset" parameter.

Now, that last sentence, on the face of it, forbids a browser to
assume a default value for the "charset" parameter.  In order to
solve the problem it has just described, however, the browser clearly
must have a user-configurable "charset default", to be used when the
incoming document lacks one.

Paradox?

Of course, Lynx has such a configurable default (as do other WWW
browsers, for sure); but it seems to me that every one of them has
some initial selection of this default, and therefore must be rated
non-compliant with HTML4.0 on the grounds that it 'assumes a default
value for the "charset" parameter', the very thing which the spec
forbids.

Perhaps the spec was worded infelicitously - maybe it meant to forbid
a client to have a fixed default setting, but must make it user
configurable.  I don't know, but, for now, it says what it says.

Aside from the fact that I'm probably being pedantic (nothing new in
that), is there some logical way of making a browser that both
conforms to the last sentence _and_ allows the reader to solve the
indicated problem?

best regards