Key.getColumnFamilyAsBytes - comments about suggested new method?

[David Medinets]

In Key.java, I see this:

  public Text getColumnFamily(Text cf) {
    cf.set(colFamily, 0, colFamily.length);
    return cf;
  }

  public Text getColumnFamily() {
    return getColumnFamily(new Text());
  }

in TabletServerBatchDeleter, I see this:

        Mutation m = new Mutation(k.getRow());
        m.putDelete(k.getColumnFamily(), k.getColumnQualifier(), new
ColumnVisibility(k.getColumnVisibility()), k.getTimestamp());

The change I recently committed would allow using byte arrays as
arguments to putDelete. It seems adding a method to Key like the
following would eliminate creating the Text object:

  public byte[] getColumnFamilyAsBytes() {
    byte[] buffer = new byte[colFamily.length];
    System.arraycopy(colFamily, 0, buffer, 0, colFamily.length);
    return buffer;
  }

I don't want to head down a twisty windy path removing Text objects
but does it make sense to reduce reliance on them?