Unfortunately in the "where there's a blame there's a claim" culture that we now live in the ATIS is more regularly being used as an arse covering exercise....."Well the airlines can't say we didn't warn them.....it's on the ATIS"
It's a shame as pertinent messages often get lost amongst the rest of the unnecessary stuff.
It's not really derriere-covering, there are things that the ATSU are obliged to promulgate purely for safety reasons. If information is not promulgated - something "pointless" like nearby DA activity, steel plates, cranes, WIP etc. and an incident occurs directly because of this then the first question that will be asked is "Why was the info not promulgated?".