Ghostbuster

Use 3.61 or 3.70 beta 1, neither of them have uac issues.

I'm pretty sure that it's "by design", however it's possible the change the default action in the shutdown dialog, by opening Power Options in the Controlpanel. Select Change plan settings, for the currently selected power plan. Click on Change advanced power settings, expand the Start menu power button in the section named Power buttons and lid. Change the default sleep to shutdown.