BTW, refer to this post, from Feb 2007:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/012409.html
It is quoting a google employee saying that 301 redirects (I accidentally said 304 earlier by mistake, XC SEO uses 301) take effect within a couple of weeks, and pass PR to the new url
More fleshed out reading here:
http://www.seobuzzbox.com/understanding-the-301-redirect/
read this before you continue this debate please
Also please note these are articles from this year, which is highly important
cheers