confused about option use in session slaves

I am confused about the values shown by get_opt_() from the
perspective of a session slave process.  The code base I am
using is GIT snapshot 0.12-20071028.

It appears that only the session master obeys the
configuration values set at runtime or in the configuration
file.  A slave instance which attaches to a master simply
uses the compiled-in default for the option, regardless of
its setting in a configuration file or to changes made to
the option at runtime.  Thus, there appears to be no way the
value known to a slave can change at run-time.

I see that load_config() is only called when the interlink
socket cannot be established, meaning that it is a session
master.  This explains why default values overridden in the
configuration file are not known to the slave processes.

Does this also mean that a slave can never be "promoted" to
a master if the master dies?  Is there a design assumption
that a slave process does not use options itself?  I have
tried killing a master to force promotion and see changed
values with get_opt_ in the debugger, but even if the
(former) slave is now the only process left, it still does
not appear to get the right values from get_opt_() even
though the option manager does appear to show modified
values.

I'm sure I am missing something obvious but I have been
trying to figure this out for a while tonight and at this
point am turning to the list membership for help in
understanding.  I can see that the slaves are intended to be
little more than I/O repeaters between the master process
and a terminal, but it seems that some options would be
worthwhile for slaves to know about as well.

Thank you for any insights.