Yeah, the RETURNING clause seems to be primarily associated with those who want to intermix "update" of the data with "display" of the data rather than maintain independence between the "update process" and the "display process". It has been my experience that down this path is peril and monsters and much failed projects. Storing and Updating the datastore is a quite independent process from displaying the contents of the datastore. Intermingling them for no good reason is unwise (and being "easier" is no good reason).