This policy defines the rule to delete the files from the system depending on various file attributes like access time, modified time, file name, path, owner, and so on.
I went back and forth on this for years, but I now think that I understand that file attributes are extremely useful for a GUI environment.
Setup failed to set the file attributes '%1' on the file '%2'.
Additionally, a layout contains permissions and other file attributes.
And that's exactly the kind of persistence that file attributes tend to have.
This is a powerful feature allowing you to use naming patterns, Boolean logic, and file attributes to select what files to operate on.
For which you want to be able to associate data with those applications — that have exactly the right semantics for file attributes.