Any legitimate reason for 'UF A E' file defn when output only?

I've only been in my current shop for a year. It's not unusual for me to
find some questionable coding techniques, but some just baffle the hell out
of me.

Case in point: I'm looking at a batch program that strictly writes to a
table. No input, no update. But the file definition appears as:
FAUDITLOG UF A E K DISK

This appeared on our radar because we're in the process of turning on
journaling for DR. Performance was acceptable prior to journaling, but
afterwards, it added 80 minutes to the batch job that runs it. (FWIW, the
file has no unique keys, nor do any of its logicals. Also, when this job
runs, no other job or program is touching this file.) The above definition
forces a write to storage after every single output operation. If I change
it to
FAUDITLOG O E DISK
... the system blocks 23 records by default. A journal performance redbook
suggested blocking within a 128k byte length, which blocks 736 records.
Both of which *significantly* improve performance.

So, my question here: Is there any legitimate reason that I'm missing why
you would want to force a write to storage for every single output
operation? The person who wrote the program is no longer here, which may
itself be a clue.

- Dan