It is just a convenience (and perhaps a small performance gain) - you can always
capture the content data to achive this effect. But still, I'd like to see the
'assign' parameter of the original {content} tag replicated for ECB.
It is often usefull to have the result in a variable and not directly in the
output, especially if you use checkboxes, radiobuttons etc. to make parts of
yout template selectable by the editor.

thank you for your effords!
Ludger