Yes yes but it doesent still change the fact that maya internaly thinks the object is at origin since thats what the transformation matrix says. But yeah the underlying mechanism is such that you could think of the pivot as the actual postion, after all thats what you see.
But the pivots are actualy just offset from this transform location wich is the center of all calc (everything in the geometry is)! And its still not the way it was intended to be used. But yeah provides for a good way of keeping typed values clean.
Also since the pivot postions can and i frwquently do animate them it doesent prowide a wery constant way of knowing this. But the bounding box does, if no deforming takes place.
So this is more of a what to as for question, rather than what is. xform ofcourse answering truthfully.