Now, you could hardcode a list of "safe" apps, or add some kind of "I swear I'm safe" declaration to the app's plist, but that has its own set of problems. A one-time "this seems funky to me, are you actually intending to do this?" is a simple and safe default.
But in that sense an executable file isn't any different from a non-executable file, is it? The default app for the file could do equally dangerous things with a non-executable.
Also, how many applications actually _execute_ (bare machine, vm's don't count) content? My guess is that few if any of the applications a user opens that isn't executed by finder itself is going to execute the file's contents.
That said, even the author notes that this is designed to be forked. It's not a script to run on one's own machine blindly, the idea being to exclude what is not to your taste/while demonstrating features which can't be changed inside the gui. (It's also very helpful if setting up multiple accounts.)