Group status messages - should they follow the same rules as nodes, or are they fair game unless posted in a 'private group'?

I posted a bug report for activity logs, which dredges up an issue here as well #1338586: FBSS + Activity Log problem.

While nodes posted in a group are stripped from the group stream for non-members, group statuses aren't. They're only stripped from view for groups set as 'private groups'.

I actually think 'private groups' are redundant in Commons, because most group content (except statuses) is already stripped for non-members unless that content is explicitly set to 'public'. The only way the 'private group' setting adds to a group that's not listed in the group directory is that a user gets 'access denied' if they go direct to the group homepage as a non-member, whereas a Closed group not set private would just be empty with no link to join.

I would say the best thing to do would be to trash the 'private group' option, make any group not listed in the group directory have a private homepage as well, and make group status messages obey the same rules of display as nodes.