I agree with Punki's questioning this.

I witnessed a gate agent at DFW arguing for ten minutes yesterday with a passenger who wanted to bring a small purse onboard along with her laptop case and 19" rollaboard.

The gate agent pulled out the new FAA rules and told her she couldn't. The passenger put it in the briefcase, but then the briefcase wouldn't close and the GA told her that was not acceptable. She then put it in the outside pocket of her rollaboard - again, the GA told her it no longer met the standard. Frustrated, the passenger finally stuffed various purse items in various places throughout her two items and squeezed the flattened purse into her rollaboard.

The passenger had a valid point, however - if the purpose for allowing one carry-on and one personal item was to allow for better security screening, shouldn't it be the security screener's responsibility to turn away passengers carrying more than two items?

In this case, while I agree the passenger should have been aware of the new rule, the gate agents announced that not only could she not take three items on board, but also that if she checked one, it would NOT make the current flight as it would have to go back outside to be rescreened and would arrive on the next flight three hours later.

And guys, for those of you who are laughing wondering why we females are upset about this - purses aren't like wallets - they don't fit easily into slim briefcases and they add bulk to rollaboards that will just cause more unnecessary overstuffing of standard size carryons.