Why does a, [role=link] reassign --pico-primary?

[crumple-zone]

A colleague of mine was trying to style a headline, which is also a link, to use the regular text color. He did something like the following but with no effect:

h3 a { color: var(--pico-color}; }

After some digging we realized that Pico (v2) is reassigning the Pico color custom property for links:

a, [role=link] {
  --pico-color: var(--pico-primary);
   color: var(--pico-color);
}

We couldn't think of why this wouldn't have simply been:

a, [role=link] {
  color: var(--pico-primary);
}

It seems like this would have achieved the same visual default without preventing customization. So before we go off overriding it, I thought I'd ask and get a better understanding of the strategy. So why would --pico-color get reassigned?

Note: I attempted to simplify above code samples to focus on the issue at hand. And also, this question isn't about the wisdom of using the regular text color for a link. 😄

Thanks!