sure we could but I don't see why you would consider it questionable to leave a method open for testing only, since it's not on the API. You really think it's worth our time?

Also leaving it public allows - as a last resort - for other users to cast to the implementation. Not that we should follow this as a general rule, but in this case TBH I'm not even sure why the method existed at all, which makes me uneasy on removing it.