Mind you the -R is not that useful in some cases - like when you want
   to change a directory tree of files to be readable _but_ you need to
   make the directories r-x so the users can access the directories,
   making the files executable is not acceptable.  Sooooo what do we do?
   Fix chmod/chown so that you can tell it what type of file to apply the
   permissions to (ala finds -type argument) or what????  :-) :-)  Again
   I am not seriously suggesting that anyone should be doing the change.

i've been using chmod -R +rX for years.  (read the manual.)

.mrg.