Derrick Stolee [off-list ref] writes:
You're right that this data is redundant. It is easy to describe the
width of the tables using the OID length, so it is convenient to have
that part of the format. Also, it is good to have 4-byte alignment
here, so we are not wasting space.
There isn't a strong reason to put that here, but I don't have a great
reason to remove it, either.
Redundant information that can go out of sync is a great enough
reason not to have it in the first place.