More agile when pinned than grappled?

[Duncan Forsyth]

It seems pretty clear from RAW that for many characters your effective dexterity when pinned is higher than when merely grappled.

This is because the grappled condition applies a -4 Dex modifier to both the controlling grappler and the controlled, but then the pinned condition removes the penalty from the controlled grappler. In place, it removes their Dex bonus.

I think this has some weird (but corner case) effects.

Someone with poor dexterity might prefer to pinned than grappled when there's an incoming fireball.
Someone with the feat agile maneuvers, and dexterity less than 14, and intending to escape or reverse a grapple, would prefer to be pinned rather than grappled.

(There's really a not of things you can do with your dexterity when pinned, so it really is corner-case stuff)

So my question is ... have I missed something foolish?

Or does this need (a very low priority) patch?
e.g. apply a -4 Dex penalty to the pinned condition in addition to the loss of the Dex bonus.

Relevant rules below -

From the glossary:

[...] Grappled creatures cannot move and take a –4 penalty to Dexterity. A grappled creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks, except those made to grapple or escape a grapple. [...]

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html

[...] A pinned creature cannot move and is denied its Dexterity bonus. A pinned character also takes an additional –4 penalty to his Armor Class. [...] Pinned is a more severe version of grappled, and their effects do not stack.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html

From the FAQ:

When a creature is pinned, it gains this more severe version of the grappled condition, and the two conditions do not stack (as described in the pinned condition). While this means that you do not take both the penalties for both the grapple and the pin, this also means that pinned supersedes the grapple condition; it does not compound it. For this reason you only need to succeed one combat maneuver or Escape Artist check to escape either a grapple or a pin.

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9o3t

[Cuup]

A character would need a -5 modifier (a score of 0) to benefit more from being pinned than grappled. A -4 to Dex is only a -2 to AC, as opposed to a flat -4 to AC from being pinned.

One could argue that escaping a pin is easier than escaping a grapple, as they are closer to the ground and have more leverage. There's also the fact that while you can reverse a grapple, being pinned is its own condition and can't be reversed (even back into a grapple).

[Kazaan]

While I feel the FAQ was somewhat of an oversight in regards to what "stacking" means, the rules can still function in a cogent manner regardless. A Pinned creature can't move, thus it couldn't reflexively avoid anything anyway. The penalty of -4 Dex amounts to -2 on Dex skills (ie. Escape Artist) as well as CMD. The Pinned penalty status of "denied Dex" would only apply to AC so you have regained those two lost points towards Escape Artist at the cost of a more severe penalty to CMD (denied Dex bonus and -4 on top of that). What this means is that, if you are pinned, you can more easily reverse or break it with an Escape Artist check than you can with a CMB check whereas if you are just grappled, you should typically use CMB.

Regarding the FAQ specifically, as I stated before, I feel it was an oversight. Stacking penalties would be, for example, the Shaken/Frightened/Panicked statuses stacking the individual -2 penalties for a total of -6 at the Panicked state. Since they are all simply "versions" of each other, the -2 penalty doesn't get more severe. But Grappled and Pinned don't really share penalties in common. I agree that you shouldn't need to break Grapple separately after having broken Pinned, but the effects should compound each other in places where they don't overlap (all the places in the case of Grappled/Pinned).