That is really awesome, Derision! Very nice way of handling it without causing too much overhead.
Personally, I think that the target should not matter. If they are within the proximity, it should parse the say, target or not. If someone wanted to require a target, they can always put that requirement into the script easy enough.
One example I can think of for this is the invisible NPC in PoGrowth that would kill you if you said something like "ph4t l3wtz" and were in range of it. Obviously, you wouldn't have this targeted when you said this, but if you targeted yourself, a group member or any other NPC in the zone, I still think it should parse that say. It isn't really a big deal, but just something to consider. Either way, I am glad to see this functionality added. I am sure Kayen and myself can come up with some fun uses for it on Storm Haven
