[NTG-context] font style and size interaction

There is -- in my perception -- a problem with the interaction between font style and font size changes. The order of calling for example \it\small matters because \small\it leads to a different result. I would however reason that size and style changes should be in orthogonal spaces, that is: the one should have no effect on the other. Cause of this behaviour seems the \tf call included in small. See the accompanying example. I can try to program around this, but I would prefer not to. Is there a possibility that this behaviour will be changed to \it\small and \small\it giving the same result? dr. Hans van der Meer