Poll Component reload inappropriate when changing properties in component window

I'm analysing ESSENTIALS-647, where the configuration of a poll component (inside an HST container) behaves strangely. What happens is the following:

The Poll Plugin's PollComponent has a parameter "poll-docsPath" with a @JcrPath annotation to select a folder as the search scope for an active poll document to render. When I set the value using the document picker dialog, closing the dialog (by clicking "OK") causes the component to go through a doBeforeRender call. At this moment, the selected path has not yet been persisted to the repository, so the doBeforeRender call does nothing new. When I then click on the component parameter's "Save" and "Close" buttons, no new doBeforeRender is triggered on the poll component, and I stil don't get to see my poll.
When I re-open the parameters dialog and select a different path, upon exiting the document picker dialog, I finally get another doBeforeRender call, now using the old value of the parameter. Since I now do see my poll, I exit the parameters dialog and save, close and publish my channel changes. However, the publication of my channel changes causes another reload of the component, and since my path is wrong, I suddenly stop seeing the poll I just saw before.

So, AFAICT, the fact that the doBeforeRender is called before the path is persisted is the cause of the bad UX.