Running top without a shell -- more questions

[Anthony Atkielski]

I've set up a user account that has top for its shell (instead of one of
the standard shells).  As expected, when I log into this account, I
immediately find myself in top, and if I stop top, I'm instantly logged
out.  That's what I want.  I use it to have a continuously running
console status display without the need to be actually logged in to a
(potentially dangerous) shell.

However, I note that there is a login process under root that just sits
there, and top runs as a child of that under my chosen user name. Is
there a way to get top to run by itself, like csh or some other shell,
with the login process out of the system? What causes login to go away
in the normal case, when the shell is actually a shell program?  Isn't
the user fully logged in by the time control passes to top?

-- 
Anthony