I don't honestly think it would have happened by accident, though; it would have been simpler to do it the other way. And for other versions, perhaps they changed their minds, or had different ideas?
Truth be told, I think the CD version, or the "cracked" version (CD or not), is a bit wussy. In addition to "fixing" the music "bug", they increased the drop height, making some levels much easier than necessary.
Anyway, it's not harsh or malicious; the idea is to be encouraging, even after mistakes have been made - i.e. to discourage players from giving up.
Besides that, have you considered that it might be normal for developers to do things like that? Otherwise, Mario games would have infinite lives, you could skip levels, there would be no need for passwords in Lemmings or other games, etc.
The SNES version has something similar: If you fail a level, you have 10 seconds to opt to try again or you get returned to the main menu.