Indeed, it should.  This is a critical need.

Robert,

Please explain?

If I turn my laptop on and I've set NM to connect to a open, unsecured wireless
router, why does NM need to access gnome-keyring where there is nothing there of
use (in this case).

Note that until I used gnome-keyring to store security information for another
wireless router in a totally seperate location I wasn't being prompted for a
password to gnome-keyring because NM didn't need anything stored in the keyring
to access this wireless router.  So why does it now?

I have no problems with typing in passwords to access information stored in
gnome-keyring that is needed to cennect, but it's just another password that
doesn't need typing in the case I describe above, isn't it.  If I told
gnome-keyring to forget this information (I don't know how, but I assume I
could) then it wouldn't be asking for a password anymore.

Rodd

This behavior is an artifact of the pre-keyring applet.  Whenever it starts up,
it asks GConf for the network information, which used to include the WEP key. 
Now that the key is in the keyring, the applet hasn't been changed to only ask
for keys on-demand from NetworkManager when they are needed.  So you get the
keyring auth dialog every time the applet launches (which is when it initially
asks GConf and the keyring for the info), rather than only when the applet
actually needs a key from the keyring.

This is fixed in HEAD, NM will only ask for the key when it needs it.