I've spoken at length with the lead FMS designer here. Based on his explanation below, we don't have any plans on changing this behavior. I'm curious to see if you agree after reading this:
135 degrees is a number that our lead FMS designer air
transport FMS days. All of our
limits were based on Cirrus type speeds and we ended up using 180 knots as the
max. We also defined a max turn initiation distance of 2.5nm. At
180 knots and a 24 degree bank angle, to accomplish a 135 degree flyby turn you
would have to start turning 2.5 nautical miles before the waypoint.
The 135 is an arbitrary kind of number, but you can see what
would happen as you increase that number by going to the extreme. If you
have to start 2.5 miles for a 135 degree turn, then you would have to start 4
miles before the waypoint for a 150 degree turn. For 170 degrees, it's 12
miles. Of course, at 180 degrees, it's impossible. So, at some
point it's nonsensical to fly by a waypoint because you're not even actually
close to the waypoint when you fly by it.
All of these limits are based on the 180 knot speed and the max
24 degree bank angle, though. Since the turn radius is proportional to
the square of the speed, you can make much tighter turns closer to the waypoint
if the groundspeed is slower. Of course, we try not to command 24 degrees
of bank either.
The higher you go from 135, the more likely it is that someone
will define a flight plan that is not flyable at high groundspeeds.
Actually, the GTN pictures in the AOPA posts illustrate the problem pretty
well. With the 150 degree course change, the turn starts early enough
that you're still a couple miles from the next waypoint RIGLI when you roll
out. But with just a few knots increase in groundspeed, you would easily
get into a situation where you would start the turn so early that you wouldn't
roll out in time to hit RIGLI. In neither of these cases are you actually
close to the SXC VOR when you "fly by" it.
Bottom line is that we could increase it and this case would
work out. But what about the next guy who wants to lead a 160 degree
turn? I had to increase the limit to 151 in
order to get the picture below. We're going to stick with what we have. 
------------- Steve Jacobson sjacobson@avidyne.com
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