mime-transfer-level

[Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com>]

Does this make sense to anyone?

[from mime-edit.el]

  (defvar mime-transfer-level 7
    "*A number of network transfer level.  It should be bigger than 7.")

On the face of it, this looks absurd.  Why would we say the number
should be bigger than 7 (and what does that mean, anyhow), and then
set it to 7 explicitly?  I had, in an old version of my config,

   (setq-default mime-transfer-level 8)

possibly just to meet the requirements of a comment, I don't know.
Elightenment would be most appreciated.