Yes, I believe so:  We are abusing the ```getDefaultGeometry``` a bit by storing a ```GeoHash``` in it rather than a real geometry.  ```decodedKey.gh``` is trying to reconstruct a ```GeoHash``` from a polygon (which it doesn't have stored in the default geometry field anyway), so we want to avoid that for now.  (Okay, so a reasonable person might ask:  Shouldn't we fix the ```.gh``` method in that case?)