NB: there is another discrepancy in that the node joining the cluster
    (after leaving it, i.e., after cluster services being stopped there)
    is not checked for configuration version, which may be different
    from what the cluster uses ... it will likely be synced upon config
    modification, but expected is that it should be got right immediately
    so that the complete cluster can work properly even if "stopped"
    node hadn't communicated with luci for some time (and hence has
    a stale configuration)

NB2: another discrepancy seems to be that when a node is made a non-member
     while still associated (leave cluster), normally the modifications
     are propagated;  however if you delete cluster.conf manually,
     modifications are no longer propagated, which may be either
     intentional (cannot see why, though) or a bug
     (unlike on active cluster member, where cluster.conf should rather
     be present all the time [rgmanager, fenced, ...], it seems perfectly
     OK to temporarily remove cluster.conf on such inactived node)

Backrefence from ML thread follow-up:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/linux-cluster/2013-November/msg00028.html

This request was not resolved in time for the current release.
Red Hat invites you to ask your support representative to
propose this request, if still desired, for consideration in
the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Closing this bz due to the fact that there is a work around and we are in production phase 2 of RHEL 6.