Hey Art,
That is by design. It is a security precaution to ensure that the owner of the account is the one updating the password. The owner of the account would always have knowledge of the password.
I am not aware of a way around this for password users. Why do you need to change the password of a user without their knowledge?
OAuth provider SDKs provide a way to refresh tokens offline after consent. That gives you the ability to reauthenticate with a credential continuously without user action.
You could use custom auth which can be created using the admin SDK. you have full control there and can create a new token to re-sign in the user when reauthentication is required.
In general, it is recommended that a user provides the old password before updating it.
Bassam