Applescript: Strange delay telling finder to sleep but not in Script Editor

I'm working on a larger applescript, but I've got a problem and I've narrowed it down to the following tiny script:

tell application "Finder"
sleep
end tell

If I open the script with the script editor and use the "run" button, the script works as I expect: The computer sleeps within a second or two.

On the other hand, if I save the script as an application and run the application, whether from the finder, the dock, or the shell, the computer eventually sleeps, but only after a delay of about 30 seconds.

Obviously it makes it very hard to debug scripts when they behave differently inside the script editor than they do in the wild. How can I set my machine up so that won't be the case? Is this a known bug?

And of course I want to know how to get my script to work right outside the script editor so I can sleep my machine without any delay.

Thanks for any info!

BTW, the OS and machine in question are 10.4.8 running on an Intel iMac.

-- Robert


Intel iMac, G4 Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.8)