Fails to use range index in outer joined table

[Fredrik Andersson]

I feel the indexer fails to use as much of the key as it could when I'm doing a range query in a left joined table.

If I do:
EXPLAIN
SELECT value from table1 a
LEFT JOIN table2 t ON t.date between '2011-05-24' and '2011-05-26'AND t.adid=a.id
WHERE a.userid=6;

it gives

+----+-------------+-------+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------+-----------------+-------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra |
+----+-------------+-------+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------+-----------------+-------+-------------+
| 1 | SIMPLE | a | ref | PRIMARY,userid_campid_id | userid_campid_id | 4 | const | 20 | Using index |
| 1 | SIMPLE | t | ref | PRIMARY,x | x | 4 | speedyads2.a.id | 11133 | Using where |
+----+-------------+-------+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------+-----------------+-------+-------------+

It uses the x index, but only 4 bytes (i.e. only the adid).

If I do the same thing but replace the ON condition with a constant adid:
EXPLAIN
SELECT value from table1 a
LEFT JOIN table2 t ON t.date between '2011-05-24' and '2011-05-26'AND t.adid=46
WHERE a.userid=6;

I get

+----+-------------+-------+-------+------------------+------------------+---------+-------+------+--------------------------------+
| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+------------------+------------------+---------+-------+------+--------------------------------+
| 1 | SIMPLE | a | ref | userid_campid_id | userid_campid_id | 4 | const | 20 | Using index |
| 1 | SIMPLE | t | range | PRIMARY,x | x | 7 | NULL | 47 | Using where; Using join buffer |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+------------------+------------------+---------+-------+------+--------------------------------+

Now it can use 7 bytes of the key, i.e. it manages to use the date portion of the index too.

WHY can't MySQL do a range index lookup on table2 when adid comes from table1?
Am I doing something stupid?

mysql> desc table2;
| date | date | NO | PRI | 0000-00-00 | |
| adid | int(11) unsigned | NO | PRI | 0 | |
| region | tinyint(3) unsigned | NO | PRI | 0 | |
| value | int(11) unsigned | NO | | 0 | |
There are two indexed: the primary key (date,adid,region) and also x(adid,date) (for testing)

table1 contains nothing special, except that it introduces the non-constant adid value in the statement above.

I have run optimize table on all involved tables.
I run community server 5.5.12 on Linux x86_64.

Thank you for any help!