Flash behavior based upon camera mode

It seems that from time to time, someone says something about flash behavior being different if the camera is in one mode vs. another. Some of us have tried to dispell this urban legend, explaining verbally how the camera behavior (in controlling aperture/shutter) are altered, but the flash behavior does not. Herein are photos showing ETTLII flash exposure using a 40D and a Metz 54MZ flash unit (with Metz 3102 M3 module), which behaves like the Canon flash would. The ambient light was very low level, not enough to register at the shutter+aperture being used by the camera...

First ETTL2, M then Av then the next row has Tv then P:

Strange that your camera chose f/2.8 in P mode. My 10D and 30D always pick 1/60 at f/4 unless ambient is brighter than that. Did they change the way it works with the 40D? Did you set some sort of custom function?

I didn't set a custom function...on the 40D P mode selects 1/60 f/4 when the light is sufficient, but if you go into lower light it can select a larger aperture.