I don't agree with the implicit validation skip even if I m not in position, right now, to appreciate if the behavioral diversion between ```set``` and ```new``` is more harmful than the one between all those documentations, tutorials, videos are going around and actual Backbone.js implementation.
But IMO if it's so important these two statements to act the same then inside ```Backbone.Model``` constructor the ```set``` statement should be placed after the ```initialize``` one (I hope not) in order for ```new``` to trigger e.g the change events are set during initialization as ```set``` method does per se.