Linus made this argument in a different forum yesterday (paraphrasing from memory): "Look, something has to be authoratitive when it comes to parameters. On a linux system, that's the kernel". Which is aribitrary, but not without merit.
No. This is the kernel command line we're talking about, after all. Its original intent is to be used to send options and information to the kernel and, by extension, kernel modules. The fact that user-space programs can read
Hackers of the world, unite!