Hi Meta,
I can see it quite often out there in the wild. If not in the normal roles, then at least in the developer or sys.admin roles meant for the DEV and TEST system. In such case there is a menu which pulls the SU24 proposals and stuff, so the role is built with a little bit of thought and purpose.
The Tcode ranges are there in addition (as manual objects S_TCODE) to provide "non-application" access ("entry point" access I mean...something like the ancient AIS roles if you're familiar with that) to things that the user is authorized to use with his/her "application access".
Because Jose got caught by SA38, I would say this is exactly his requirement.
Cheers Otto