I think you're right. But I also think this is more important, symbolically. This gives .onion a status which prevents outbacksteakhouse.onion from being plau

I think you're right. But I also think this is more important, symbolically. This gives .onion a status which prevents outbacksteakhouse.onion from being plausible, and ensures that "Any domain ending in .onion needs to be routed to Tor" is consistently true.