XMPMeta vs Metadata

After doing a XMPMeta.serialize() and Metadata.serialize() comparison, it's
obvious that Metadata is returning more than just the explicit XMP data in a
file. It is deriving/computing other fields (EXIF properties, for instance) and
using that to construct a more complete XMP view of a file's metadata.
photoshop:ColorMode is one example of a field that Metadata will contain but
XMPMeta does not (at least when the image file is a generic jpg).

While I do understand the reasons behind this, it limits the usefulness of
XMPMeta in Ps or Id. For instance, there is no way to determine (via XMPMeta)
which files in folder are Portrait or Landscape orientation because the
necessary tiff properties will probably not be available. And this is not an
uncommon thing to want to do in PS.

What is really needed is to have Metadata as a part of the core ESTK libraries
in addition to XMPMeta. As it presently stands, I have to use BridgeTalk (to
call Bridge) to get all of a file's metadata in Photoshop. And, until CS4, I had
to deal with extracting the metadata I needed from the serialized XMP in my own
code.

Is having the Metadata class available to Ps and Id as a part of ESTK an
unreasonable thing to want or an impractical thing to implement?

-X