It is both documented (http://docs.python.org/dev/library/argparse.html#argument-abbreviations) and an important feature.

I thought there was an enhancement request in this tracker for making the behavior optional, but I couldn't find it when I looked, so I'm turning this into one.  If someone finds that there is already another issue this one can be closed as a dup.

I'm marking it low priority, though, because I think most people want the ability to abbreviate the option names.