Modelling transmitter and receiver impairments in communication system
It makes sense to me. If the ideal transmitted signal is $s(t)$, the signal that is actually transmitted is $s(t)$ plus noise and distortion. This is the signal that suffers attenuation and fading, and to which an extra heaping of noise and distortion is added in the receiver. Modeling transmitter imperfections is not something that is included in most introductory textbooks, but it's very important to implement a system with good performance. You may see for example "RF System Design of Transceivers for Wireless Communications" by Qizheng Gu for more.

Having said that, modeling the transmitter imperfections as just Gaussian noise is a bit optimistic, but it may be a step in the right direction.