The basic idea is that if you draw a sphere, I want to keep it as degree 2 if you don't need to mess with its control points since the degree 2 version is a totally precise exact sphere.

But if you want to turn on control points and squish it, you get the points for a rebuilt degree 3 version, but the sphere itself does not get changed to use that degree 3 rebuilt surface until you actually drag one of those points around.

- Michael