ShortURLs vs BaseURL in Base HREF tags

The tradition of using &xar-baseurl; as the URL for the base tag appears 
to break CSS when combined with ShortURLs, since the xarServerGetBaseURI 
does not seem to take ShortURL settings in var/config.

The only solution I've found is to make the Base URL in the theme's page 
template static for each site that makes use of ShortURLs.

Has anyone else stumbled on this, and is there a better solution that 
I'm missing?

-St.Ego