OpenSSH and hostname resolution issues on Solaris

[Hannu Liljemark]

Is it a feature or a configuration error with OpenSSH when
sshd refuses to answer, if you have DNS configured via
/etc/resolv.conf and /etc/nsswitch.conf but the nameservers
are not available (due to temporary firewalling glitch, for
example)?
          
Worst case the machine never gets past starting sshd during
boot, but usually you "just" can't reach the machine with ssh.
The OpenSSH in question is anything from ~2.9 to 3.5p1,
compiled with tcp_wrappers and sshd: ALL in hosts.allow (if    
that matters). OS is Solaris 8, but I think we've had it in
Sol7 as well.

Some answers that turn up when browsing list archives
seem to discuss misconfigured reverse-dns combined with
all: PARANOID in hosts.deny but we haven't used the
paranoid stuff. Sometimes the DNS is just out of reach and
that's when things start going wrong.

Some simple solution for the problem we've haven't
noticed?