context-dependent misbehavior of date, time shortcuts

Observed Behavior:

1. Starting from an empty cell, ctrl-; inserts the date (as expected). However, it leaves the cursor in front of the inserted text, which is weird.
2. Starting from a non-empty cell, crtl-; does not insert the date, which is weird. Also it pops up a "smiley" window, which is even weirder.
3. Similar words apply to ctrl-shift-; (but no smileys).

Expected and Desired Behavior:

1. These shortcuts should work the same, no matter whether the cell is empty or not.
2. The cursor should be left after the inserted text, just as it would be if the text has been typed in by hand.
3. In particular, there is a well-known idiom ctrl-; space ctrl-shift-; that should insert the date and time. I'm told this is standard excel behavior, although I'm not in a position to double-check that myself.

Workaround:

This is not critical, because there are several workarounds. One possibility is ctrl-; ctrl-A ctrl-X Esc ctrl-shift-; ctrl-V space which is workable but super-arcane.

Platform:

This is observed with a very recent gnumeric version '1.12.48' compiled from freshly-pulled git sources. It is also observed with a years old gnumeric version '1.12.38'.