First, sorry if this was blocked on my next action and I dropped the ball. @adrienthebo just pinged me on this as he's sweeping the PRs.

Second, I have read through this section of code and this comment thread three times now and still feel like I don't understand what the options and tradeoffs are. @stschulte does this address the problem in the puppet-users thread you referenced, and/or a class of problems like it? @daniel-pittman is there a specific failure mode in cron that you have in mind as being dangerous?