Meaning of pointing property

[rpatters1]

Various event markings have a point property. The documentation (from accent) says:

Specifies whether this accent should point upward or downward. If not provided, consuming applications should use their own automatic algorithms to determine this.

This text implies that pointing affects strictly the orientation of the marking glyph. But what most music programs are more (or at least equally) interested in is whether the marking is pinned above or below the event. MuseScore for example, has the latter setting and then chooses the appropriate glyph based on that.

So my question is, is pointing intended to pin the marking above or below the glyph? Or is the text correct, and it simply specifies which glyph to choose. Whatever the answer, I think we need an optional way to pin markings above or below events. And if we are trying to specify a glyph, which not just add glyph. It is my opinion all markings are going to want glyph anyway.