I'm not sure its a bug. But this would definitely be a good feature. I don't think it's as easy as just saying that the render distance should be increased but the simulation distance should stay. Because the server still has to tell the client which chunks exist with what data when the client wants to render it.
And how would that work when players are in far away chunks? They would just pop up when they would get in to the simulation distance?
I'm not sure its a bug. But this would definitely be a good feature. I don't think it's as easy as just saying that the render distance should be increased but the simulation distance should stay. Because the server still has to tell the client which chunks exist with what data when the client wants to render it.
And how would that work when players are in far away chunks? They would just pop up when they would get in to the simulation distance?