[Phanx]

True, that's not the intended use, but it is the only way to accomplish some things. My action bar addon (also Macaroon) can use macro conditionals to define bar states. In order to create a bar state that shows only when I am dead, I have to do [@player, dead] which is the short version of [target=player, dead]. If you simply use [dead] it will show the bar when my current target is dead, which is not the desired functionality.

Also, I think the @unit alias for target=unit was added more because of the extreme limitations on the length of macros, than as an attempt to clarify the meaning. Length is also the reason they added bar as an alias for actionbar and form as an alias for stance (though the latter was also added because the average player probably does not realize that druid forms are considered stances by the game/macro engine).