How to setup a single route with optional argument

I have re-read the user guide and this description and the current behavior still do not match.
It is natural that the string that matches (.+) would be the one param $1.

Thank God :-) That's the whole point of this thread. For me the docs description does not match the behavior of (.+) and (:any). 
(:any) will NOT match all characters from that point to the end of the URI. It will match all characters till the first forward slash(/).

It seems to me that the current behavior should be changed.

Totally!