checkAccess method in DataObjectMaster ?

Why is the checkAccess method in DataObjectMaster related to blocks ?
There doesn't seem to be any place where this is actually used today,
and I don't see the link with blocks either.

Note: I don't really have a problem with having such a method to check 
access for object actions (view/display/create/update/delete/config/...) 
in general for the future, e.g. to replace the xarSecurityCheck(...) 
calls in the object UI handlers with simpler $object->checkAccess(...) 
calls.

But then the link to blocks would need to disappear, and we'd need to
expand the number of actions too ;-)

So what was the idea here ?

Mike.