Changing "Mail Downloads" folder for attachments

It seems in Leopard Mail, when you double click an attachment to open it, it is temporarily saved to ~/Library/Mail Downloads. This is in contrast to (I think) Tiger, where it would be saved to the Downloads folder set in the General preferences. There is still a setting for the Downloads folder in the General preferences, and according to the help window, it is to "Specify the folder in which to temporarily save attachments you open from a message". To me, that means the same as the Tiger behavior. However, if I change this preference to, say, "Desktop", it seems opening an attachment (not explicitly saving it) still saves it to the ~/Library/Mail Downloads folder, not the assigned folder. Is this the correct behavior? If so, the help window is misleading. Personally, I would like the option to change this folder, although I suppose there are workarounds such as changing the Mail Downloads folder to an alias of the desired destination folder.

thanks.