I agree, I think.  I deleted this block because I thought it was a relic, left over from a previous version that had the same problem I encountered with WCS.  That is, I thought a new version of the protocol came out, and that there were no properties in common between the old and new versions, and this was set to null as an expedience because nothing else would work.

I will reinstate the block, though I am not sure that is the best solution.