The balance between features and performance in the block layer

Personally I consider it bad API style in general to combine common and obscure functionality in the same call via option flags. When niche functionality is handled by a separate specialized API instead it also makes documentation less confusing and allows for that obscure thing to evolve more easily. Beter performance for the common operation is more the cherry on top. Wouldn't simply using a new ioctl for this feature be a solution?