Ok, here's the follow-up. Will try to keep short.

Last week I call local dealer, explain in detail what's going on and ask if normal. They say not normal, and say I should bring it in. Over phone dealer guarantees me that they will diagnose the problem.

They check it, nothing. They keep it overnight, check cold-engine start-up, they conclude not normal, and decide to reprogram PCM. They call me up and say 'fixed!', and on the receipt indeed it said 'Vehicle okay now'. Great. I pick it up, start engine, exactly the same as before. wtf? I ask. Service person talks to mechanic who then says this is actually normal. What? I explain that if normal, they should have told me and I need not have brought it in (save money/time/hassle). Service guys see problem developing, start backtracking, and say maybe not normal and they will contact Ford (??). Two days later I call, no news. Get feeling there will not be news. When I ask why it is they do not know this stuff about such a common vehicle and need to contact Ford to figure it out, they claim they don't see that many rangers (what??).

Bit disappointed. Up till this point, these guys are great. Instead of just saying 'jee, looks like we might have screwed up on this, sorry about that, of course we won't charge you for this', they start circling and making the whole thing non-conclusive. Don't get that. Everybody makes mistakes, just take responsibility.

I decide I have had enough, call other nearby dealer. Talk to service specialist there. I explain start-up behavior, and he immediately says that that is exactly what it should be. Totally normal. As far as I am concerned, case closed. My best guess is that it is normal (for those of you that knew this already, you were right; should have listened to you instead of dealer:-)). Now all I need to do is get money back from dealer 1 (yeah I know, good luck with that :-)).

Anyway, thanks all for input. It seems this may be normal after all. I'm perfectly happy with that outcome of course, and still very happy with the Ranger; less happy with local stealer.