Hi AJ, no, you're right.
I considered doing this for the same reason, perhaps using ```set(lats)```.
I just thought I'd leave that for another PR in case of unexpected complication!
Iris should be able to _represent_ gaussian grids using AuxCoord though, I'm sure you'd agree.
It would be nice if it could [load and save] (https://github.com/SciTools/iris/issues/506#issuecomment-17927533) them from GRIB too, as I know they're flying about.