Proposed resolution:

Add a note to decay in [meta.trans.other]:

[Note: This behavior is similar to the lvalue-to-rvalue (4.1), array-to-pointer (4.2), and function-to-pointer (4.3) conversions applied when an lvalue expression is used as an rvalue, but also strips cv-qualifiers from class types in order to more closely model by-value argument passing. — end note]

[ 2010 Pittsburgh: Moved to Ready. ]

[ 2009-08-09 Howard adds: ]

See the thread starting with c++std-lib-24568 for further discussion. And here is a convenience link to the original proposal. Also see the closely related issue 705.

I notice that std::decay is specified to strip the cv-quals from anything but an array or pointer. This seems incorrect for values of class type, since class rvalues can have cv-qualified type ([basic.lval]/9).