Well as long as your there you might as well do the oil pump and timing chain, and if the pan is off.......

 

You're killing me smalls!

 

I imagine this would make it easier to clean the exterior or the engine. Myself I have spent hours trying to clean off the top end of my engine with some elbow grease and some simple green. But alas the porous surface makes it most difficult to get all the dark spots out. After all that work it still looks like a dirty old engine. Seems like any future buildup of oil dirt and grease would just wipe right off with minimum effort if the block was platted like that.