Function or benefit from dodder/strangle weed?

All I'm finding so far is "eradicate as fast and completely as possible" but I'm hoping for a more reasonable, permaculture perspective. I'm of the mind that everything has it's purpose in nature.

With that said, does anyone know the purpose/benefit of dodder? It's going nuts around my place lately but I hesitate to rip up all the hosts and go back to bare dirt ground I'm leaning towards letting nature take her course and seeing what happens. Thoughts and opinions would be very welcome.

Apparently it has some herbal uses:

http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_dodder.htm

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/duke/ethnobot.pl

Interesting. Thanks Tyler, I'll dig around for more info along those lines. I have been wondering what the faint, gardenia-like scent was coming from

I'll keep an eye on it around the baby trees and food crops. It's currently primarily in the poppy patches and all over unknown native plants. It tries for the corn and beans I have tucked in around dead bushes but I've been able to manage that area so far.

Theres tons of dodder strangling the life out of vegetation along the lake so perhaps its purpose is to reduce the number of plants growing? Kind of like a natural control on the weed population so by next year new plants can come up.

So far the only function I have found is strangulation of my snap peas, cucumbers and onions.  Benefit...absolutely none unless you want to count calorie control.