E4X: What happens to the root element?

Question

I'm working with XML using the E4X notation. I'm used to the "old school" XML APIs that use DOM and I'm a bit confused.
For example, let's consider the following XML
<mx:XML id="myXML" >
  <top>
    <sub1 id="uno">
      <sub2>hello</sub2>
      <sub3>world</sub3>
    </sub1>
    <sub1 id="duo">
      <sub2>ok</sub2>
      <sub3>ko</sub3>
    </sub1>
  </top>
</mx:XML>
In my code I use the following traces. This is done with the De MonsterDebugger, but all others should work the same way. I have casted the traces to String only to make it easier to ask this question (no need post images)
MonsterDebugger.trace(this, "myXML:" + myXML);
MonsterDebugger.trace(this, "myXML.sub1: " + myXML.sub1);
MonsterDebugger.trace(this, "myXML.sub1.sub2: " + myXML.sub1.sub2);
What I get as output is
(String) = myXML:<top>
  <sub1 id="uno">
    <sub2>hello</sub2>
    <sub3>world</sub3>
  </sub1>
  <sub1 id="duo">
    <sub2>ok</sub2>
    <sub3>ko</sub3>
  </sub1>
</top>
(String) = myXML.sub1: <sub1 id="uno">
  <sub2>hello</sub2>
  <sub3>world</sub3>
</sub1>
<sub1 id="duo">
  <sub2>ok</sub2>
  <sub3>ko</sub3>
</sub1>
(String) = myXML.sub1.sub2: <sub2>hello</sub2>
<sub2>ok</sub2>
All is fine above and this was a bit long abstract for my question. The question is what happens to the root element, in this case <top>? I was trying to access the data with the following notation
myXML.top.sub1; // etc
I spent quite a lot of time trying to get it to work, until I discovered that the root element is not used. Can anyone explain this?
Or, I guess the simple explanation is that the root node is ignored and the sub nodes are created as properties of the object. The question also could be stated as: Why isn't this documented in the Flex API Reference?
Thanks.
P.S. I found this article on common E4X pitfalls which also has other interesting topics when working with E4X.

Answer 1

its gone
downgrading would kill the phone..