In reply to Jeffr0.

No, post formats are about being theme neutral. They indicate what the theme should attempt to do with the content but do not force it. Templates OTOH are theme specific.

It is just another variant that can be used for doing post formats, you could have styled them differently by marking then with a specific category/tag, use a custom field value or create a special CPT. This is just another alternative and probably the least efficient in the specific case of post formats.