S1SI Powershot closeup lens (500D). Needed?

Was looking at the Canon Powershot S1SI homepage. Notice that Canon offers a closeup lens (500D) for the S1SI camera. Is this lens really needed? Reason I ask is with the fantastic zoom in abilities both on and off camera of the digital cameras, that a close up lens might not be needed? Understand that I am new to digital cameras here. What situations would this closeup lens be superior to the closeup abilities of the camera itself or later tweeking with photoware? Thanks, Charles

If you want to take pictures of bugs and flowers, then you need them. Otherwise I just set 10x zoom, and 1 m focal distance and you get decent quality.

But you'll be able to take pics from like 3 cm with closeup lenses.

hi.. i was wondering with the focal length on the s1sI , will the back ground of a photo be out of focus like a slr camera? i like the new camera and hope that it will.if not, i'm half tempted to look at a digital slr. thank you