[R] princomp with more coloumns than rows: why not?

[Bjørn-Helge Mevik]

As of R 1.7.0, princomp no longer accept matrices with more coloumns
than rows.  I'm curious:  Why was this decision made?

I work a lot with data where more coloumns than rows is more of a rule
than an exception (for instance spectroscopic data).  To me, princomp
have two advantages above prcomp: 1) It has a predict method, and 2)
it has a biplot method.

A biplot method shouldn't be too difficult to implement (I believe
I've seen one on R-help).

A predict method seems to be more difficult, because the prcomp object
doesn't include the means that need to be subtracted from the new
data.  Would it break conformance with S to let prcomp return the
means as well?

-- 
Sincerely,
Bjørn-Helge Mevik