Unnecessary array copy in views_handler_field_field->set_items

In the set_items method $array is undefined before this point:

if ($this->options['field_api_classes']) {
      // Make a copy.
      $array = $render_array;
      return array(array('rendered' => drupal_render($render_array)));
    }

So what is the point assigning $render_array to $array? Isn't this just waste of time?