note 2033 deleted from install.apache by irc-html

Actually, does anyone know why there is this paranoia about running httpd processes as root? The only reason I can think of is the danger of scripts being run as root - which would be very bad. But, what if as soon as a local document is being accessed, the server just switches the userid to that of the file owner, refusing to do so if the file is owned by root? How can this be insecure? It would get rid of this cgi-wrapper and php userid issues once and for all. Can anyone give a a good reason why this would not work? -Dino