missing XPath axis

Hello,

I just wandered what was the reason for the authors of the XPath
recommendations to not include the XPath axis 'child-or-self::' as a
counterpart to 'descendant-or-self::' in XPath 1.0, 2.0 or at all?

Although I'm not sure if this is the appropriate mailinglist to ask --
just in case, please point me to the right mailinglist.

I know it's doable via 'expression/(self::node()|node())' but I think
that's more or less a work around to the lack of the 'child-or-self::' axis.

kind regards,
Johannes