OPTION WITH RECOMPILE
forces Sql Server to Recompile an execution plan even if there is an existing plan cached in the memory.
If the underlying data changes dramaticly and very quickly the cached execution plan becomes less efficient. Therefore in such situation using WITH RECOMPILE
option executes the procedure much faster then it would execute if it had used the already compiled execution plan.
My guess the developer/person experienced some long delays when he executed the stored procedure. and when he used the WITH RECOMPILE
option it got executed faster. So maybe he thought executing this procedure without recompile option causes blocking. :) funny story but I think this is what happened.