oh i see...
>>> '.' in sys.path
False
but the "played" path does get put on top, both for Play button and editor actions.
execfile does not do this, though i guess we were already responsible for setting path using execfile, at least indirectly through chdir.
Editor actions are a little surprising, in that they change sys.path globally. I have not tried this yet, but might that cause unintended consequences for running programs? I.e if there is some dynamic import, running a wrench item would cause that import to break.
I guess the point is, scripts should add their own import folder to sys.path, if they want to be guaranteed to be able to import from that folder later.