A lot of my errands are half a mile from home. Five years ago, there were a few cases where my Stanza would run fine when I started the cold engine and drove half a mile, but when I restarted a few minutes later and stepped on the gas to pull out of the parking lot, the engine ran rough and wouldn't pick up any speed even with the clutch in. In half a minute, everything would be fine. It seemed to happen when the temperature was in the 40s.
After a couple of years, I had no more trouble. Today it happened again. This time the temperature was 80F. I noticed stepping down hard on the gas had no effect. If it were a stuck fuel-mass sensor, I would have expected that to cause a stall. It didn't occur to me to take my foot off the gas and see if it idled smoothly. In half a minute, the engine worked normally.
What could cause an engine to lose power for half a minute only when warmed up for half a mile, then turned off for 10 minutes?