That last part... Wow. I'd really like to know what's up there as well.

With regards to the first part, I suspect a bad device. From what I know of how these things work, they should all simply be supplying the required voltage at the correct pins. The actual charging circuit is built into your device and it's up to that device, via its power management to regulate its charging cycle.

I'm sure there are differences to the build quality and safety aspects of different wall warts. It would be nice to have one that didn't draw any current until something was plugged into it for example.

EDIT. Wow, just after posting this, my computer just spontaneously went to sleep. I have it docked right now and am also in the middle of a dual-core intense video encode. See, odd shit happens to Apple hardware too.