Inherit by node reference?

It would be awesome if this module allowed inheritance by node reference.
I made myself a Computed field that does this, but it is only on a proof-of-concept basis. (My skills in module development are far to modest to implement it as a CCK setting, unfortunately.)

I'm attaching the code if it could be of any interest.

Cheers!

// This code can be inserted into a CCK Computed Field to allow the field to inherit values from specified references

// Set parameters
$field_name = "field_name_here";
$reference_name = "field_nodereference_inheritance";
$default_value = "default";


// Start searching on the current node

$tmpnode = $node;
$value = $tmpnode->{$field_name}[0]['value'];


// Parameter for failsafe
$i = 0;
$i_max = 15;

// Keep searching until a value is found or there is no reference to load
// Note that node_load is carried out as a part of loop evaluation
while ($value == '' && ($tmpnode = node_load($tmpnode->{$reference_name}[0]['nid']))) {
  $value = $tmpnode->{$field_name}[0]['value'];
  
  // Break if number of recursions is suspiciously high
  $i++;
  if($i == $i_max) {
    dsm("Reached maximum recursion limit when trying to find $field_name inheritance, falling back to defaul value ($default_value).");
    break;
  }
}

// Set default value, if reasonable
if ($value == '') {$value = $default_value;}

// Set field value
$node_field[0]['value'] = $value;