Then you are speaking from ignorance. PATCH is not part of the HTTP specification. It's defined in an IETF RFC (5789) upon which the ink is not yet dry (March 2010, and in fact it's not even stable: the most recent errata was 31 days ago).
Feeling entitled to making firm pronouncements about "correct" behavior on subjects one is not an expert in (and let's be clear: no one is an expert on PATCH yet) is in some sense the very definition of "cargo cult mentality".
Edit: that's probably harsher than it's intended. My point isn't really about PATCH, which seems sane. It's about the pedantic mentality which is running rampant in the REST community (c.f. the "ARGH!" above), which in my mind is taking a good idea and polluting it with terrible nonsense in the pursuit of "purity". Think of what happened to Agile if you continue down this path.
> It is "easy" to blindly follow any rule. In most cases it is also wrong.
Come on.