The Nodes quick start guide[0] tells the user to restart apache and pulp-agent, but doesn't mention the required step of running pulp-manage-db. This is necessary on both the parent and the child. [0] https://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/pulp-2.1/nodes.html
The first sentence of the installation instructions is this: "Since Pulp nodes are Pulp servers, the installation instructions for Nodes support assumes that the server installation has been completed." Does that change your thoughts on this bug? Note that in the above sentence, "server installation" is a link to the appropriate document.
Never mind. I think I get it. Your point is that there still may be node migrations to account for, thus requiring execution of pulp-manage-db again.
http://pulp-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/nodes.html The "Installation" section in step #3 tells the user to run pulp-manage-db again.