Methods for checking required() and installed() packages

I thought I wanted status(pkg_name), and maybe that's still useful, but I think really I'm just interested in the version of a package and whether a package was manually added (required) or included by necessity (another packaged needed it).

Basically, I want it to be easy to say:

    if required(pkg) != Nothing
        blarg....

    if contains(required(pkg), specific_version_number)
        blarg....

Worth including by default? Or is there an easy way to do this that I missed?