>> Item-2
>> ======
>> 1. Enable transient-mark-mode
>> 2. C-SPC
>> 3. <down> <down>
>> 4. C-g
>> 5. C-u C-x r s a
>
> That's normal: the same happens with C-w instead of C-u C-x r s a.
>
>> Now as a transient mark user, I find disappearance of a non-highlighted
>> text in (5) surprising.  Comments?
>
> What did you expect to happen?  That the text is copied but not deleted?
> Or that neither happens and you get an error.
> If you want an error, you can set mark-even-if-inactive to nil.
>
>
>         Stefan