I speak with the voice of experience. It's very common for second-gen Eclipse enthusiasts to disconnect their clutch switch (although we can just unplug ours--don't have to rig anything with tape). Reason being that with the heavy pressure plates we end up swapping to, a lot of excessive lateral load is placed on the crank thrust bearing--the release lever pivots on the end of it.
What fantastic design.
Anyhow, the second-gen Eclipses had a bit of an epidemic with premature thrust bearing wear, especially in the earlier models. Making it so that we could start the car without putting a bunch of lateral pressure on a dry thrust bearing just kind of made sense.
But yes, I've nearly put my Eclipse through a wall many times after getting back into the car after someone else has driven it. People tend to park in first gear, I tend to park in neutral...