What's a GtkDrawingArea good for?

["Daniel Haude" <dunno stoptrick com>]

Hello,

this is really odd. Some time ago I spent about a week creating a custom  
widget (stuff gets drawn directly into the widgets's window using GDK  
primitives). All works quite well.

It's only now that I realized that I hadn't even used a GtkDrawingArea for  
the purpose. I must have forgotten. So my puzzlement is evident from the  
Subject line: if I can do all that stuff without using a dedicated  
GtkDrawingArea, what is it good for?

Thanks,
--Daniel