I come from Illustrator (like most people here) and being able to edit groups without having to get inside the group and selecting every single object is a fundamental part of my work style.
Example: I have a logo and need to make a color separation. I either have to ungroup everything, add or substract as needed then group again, or getting inside the group and select items accordingly.
In illustrator I simply select the group, click Merge on the pathfinder and that's it.
Hopefully the screenshots can help me explain better
