Why do we need SmartDocs models?

Hello,

I wonder why do we need SmartDocs models at all considering new API specification management capabilities? It seems to me that SmartDocs models should be an Apigee Edge implementation detail than a concept that API teams should be aware of. It's API specs that we use to create proxies and the same API specs we need to use to create SmartDocs models. What are the added benefits of using SmartDocs models in addition to API specs? Wouldn't it be better to simply have some sort of automation to publish API specs on the developer portal?

And another interesting question to me is whether API specs are aligned well to API products to be the basis for API developer documentation? It's API products that an application developer is faced with, not API proxies. And an API product can have only a subset of API proxy resources. More than that, an API product can have resources from multiple API proxies. There seems to be a kind of a mismatch between the level of entities that an application developer uses to develop her applications and the ones that she sees on the developer portal. Wouldn't API products be more suitable as the basis for API developer documentation?

Thanks.