It isn't all that silly. The long and short of it is it's better to continue v1-10 than v1+10 and abort. Because to continue means a screen height of 15 feet or so on the MD-80 (no different then adjusting v1 for contamination) however aborting at v1+10 means going off the end of the runway at 80knts.
At American Airlines they make a big deal of this b/c of the number of high speed aborts. We even have charts to figure the effects of different abort or continue speeds and its effect on the crossing height over the end of the runway.
Just my 2 cents