Totally agree with Gruber on this usability point.
Daring Fireball: On the Behavior of the iPhone Mute Switch
I think the current behavior of the iPhone mute switch is correct. You can’t design around every single edge case, and a new iPhone user who makes the reasonable but mistaken assumption that the mute switch silences everything, with an alarm set that he wasn’t aware of, and who is sitting in the front row of the New York Philharmonic when the accidental alarm goes off, is a pretty good example of an edge case.
Whereas if the mute switch silenced everything, there’d be thousands of people oversleeping every single day because they went to bed the night before unaware that the phone was still in silent mode.
Additionally, the suggestion made about showing more UIAlertViews just muddy the experience. We need LESS UIAlertViews… not more.