I can see the obscuring of http:// being useful way back in 1995, but in 2010, it seems kind of a moot point given how ubiquitous the act of web browsing is.
To be entirely honest, I can't see how it would be useful either in 1995 or now. A person either cares about URLs or they don't. In the first case, the URL should be displayed properly; in the second, they won't have a damn clue what all that funny text in the box at the top of the screen is anyway, so you may as well show it properly.
