Re: WTF!
"1985 called and wants its $PATH variable back"
Err, ordered search paths are pretty critical in pretty much every OS. Otherwise the OS would have to search the entire local disk array and any NFS/NAS devices to find the correct binary on every attempted execution of a command/program. I think perhaps you can see the problem there.
Also $PATH is unix. IIRC for windows its %PATH% though I could be wrong.