Why does the Account connect() method return a string?

In my case, “connect” doesn’t actually have any semantic meaning for my custom snaps (since they are sending custom SOAP messages to our legacy system) so I am using connect() to validate the connectivity and credential information used to make a SOAP call (by making a SOAP call). Somehow, I got the idea that I could influence the message that pops up in the UI using the message returned by the connect() method. Clearly, that idea was wrong…