EN.WP.ST47 wrote:

This would require $wgMakeBotPrivileged in makebot.php to be set to true. I'm sure there's a good reason it's currently set to false, however, whether that be community consensus, technical reasons, or just sanity.

And no, while that is set to false, a sysop cannot be given +bot without steward assistance.

lilewyn wrote:

Closing and notifying the parties who brought it to my attention that it's a configurable setting. Thanks.

robchur wrote:

The optional technical restriction was put in place due to the de facto attitude against "adminbots" on the English Wikipedia at the time; it was, of course, made configurable from the off because other wikis might rightly fail to adopt this attitude.

As noted, it's a trivial matter of configuring $wgMakeBotPrivileged to true.

triyork wrote:

Note it's possible for bureaucrats to make +bot first, and then +sysop, but then they're unable to revoke the botflag because Special:Makebot complains about the administrator status.

(In reply to comment #4)

Note it's possible for bureaucrats to make +bot first, and then +sysop, but
then they're unable to revoke the botflag because Special:Makebot complains
about the administrator status.

No, this case was fixed with r26307: "Allow revocation of bot flag when user has got sysop/bureaucrat status in the meantime"