@jamie An implementation might push the binary data at delivery time if it wanted to save some HTTP hits later. It's the same reason that some web pages use data: urls or inline SVG.
You may not agree that it's ever necessary, and I actually don't care if it is or not.
It's a feature that Activity Streams 1.0 had, that the AS2 spec hints at, and that I vaguely remember discussing in the WG. I want to make sure I cover it correctly in my book.