Please update the function block comment to briefly mention that we try and flush the outbox too.  I would suggest we also remove both XXX'd paragraphs.  I suspect those date from the original abandoned cronsync implementation and the days when our sync implementation wasn't always "load from db then refresh" but instead "talk to the server since it's been a while, then report stuff."  I certainly find them deeply confusing right now, so I doubt they're doing anyone else any good.