What does publishing a node accomplish?
Node status is baked into the node access system fairly deeply in implementations.  What I mean is, it is not directly used by used hook_node_access() and hook_node_grants(), but implementations of these hooks do.  The node access system defines who can see and do what to nodes.  So, if you are using nodes outside of page content (eg, using Rabbit Hole w/ Nodequeue), you can still hide your unpublished content from people who don't need to see it.