Length vertex group, Blender bug?

[blindsaypatten]

When I try to use the length vertex group in cycles particles to control the length of hair it mostly works fine, but when I switch to Particle Edit mode all the hairs suddenly have the same length:

The only difference in these views is one is Weight Paint mode (Object mode behaves the same) and the other is Particle Edit mode.

I think this is a bug in Blender but I would like a second opinion before I report it in case I'm misunderstanding how this should work.

[Mindfront]

I think this is because only the children uses weights not the parents as they only work as guide. So when in particle edit mode, if not activated to show children (left menu, tools, options, Children, path steps more than 0), only full length parent hair shows but when in other mode only the children shows.

[blindsaypatten]

I think this is because only the children uses weights not the parents as they only work as guide. So when in particle edit mode, if not activated to show children (left menu, tools, options, Children, path steps more than 0), only full length parent hair shows but when in other mode only the children shows.

For the test case shown there weren't any children, perhaps that's not a common use case, but None is the default in the Children properties. If the non-children are shown scaled in Object and Weight Paint modes, why not scale them in Particle Edit mode as well? It's a whole lot harder to manipulate them when the length is different from what it is in Object mode and when it is rendered. But now I've learned how to show children in Particle Edit mode, which I didn't know could be done, which is very useful so thanks!