This is a great idea, and will keep the usage consistent when it's necessary to create the context instance before binding to the view.  I had suggested a workaround for someone awhile back where I proposed NOT using bindContext, but with your fix here, they would still be able to use it.  See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/backbone-geppetto/bindContext/backbone-geppetto/IIdAWsqSIzg/scVXsaPbhIMJ