On: OpenSSH introduces options to penalize undesirable...

[lcampbell]

> what if someone turns [password authentication back] on

sshd_config requires root to modify, so you've got bigger problems than weak passwords at this point.

[skissane → lcampbell]

It is a lot more likely for some random admin to inappropriately change a single boolean config setting as root, than for them to replace an entire software package which (by design) doesn't have code for a certain feature with one that does.