I want the same code deployed in each environment. That said, sometimes, there are metadata changes that get made in one environment that are valid, but shouldn't be made to the codebase as a whole. One example might be an exclusion rule that doesn't apply in a given test environment. This typically causes operations folks to modify the data in-situ (i.e. setting an Active flag to "N"), and life is good until the next deployment that modifies that metadata comes along and re-enables the flag. I envision this as a way to consistently apply / re-apply these changes after a deploy.
I want the same code deployed in each environment. That said, sometimes, there are metadata changes that get made in one environment that are valid, but shouldn't be made to the codebase as a whole. One example might be an exclusion rule that doesn't apply in a given test environment. This typically causes operations folks to modify the data in-situ (i.e. setting an Active flag to "N"), and life is good until the next deployment that modifies that metadata comes along and re-enables the flag. I envision this as a way to consistently apply / re-apply these changes after a deploy.