The designers do have a reason, see JLS �5.3
Method invocation conversions specifically do not include the implicit narrowing of integer constants which is part of assignment conversion (�5.2). The designers of the Java programming language felt that including these implicit narrowing conversions would add additional complexity to the overloaded method matching resolution process (�15.12.2).
In other words, trying to do it gave everyone a headache
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Jane Griscti
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform
[This message has been edited by Jane Griscti (edited October 11, 2001).]