grub rewriting the MBR in FC2 Install?

[Gautam Apte]

Hi,
I would like to know whether it is necessary for grub to write into the
MBR. My current FC1 partition table is below where grub is in the boot
partition (hda7). What are the advantages of having grub write into the
MBR as opposed to leaving it in a separate boot partition? 
 

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
 
   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1             1         4     32098+  de  Dell Utility
/dev/hda2   *         5      1024   8193150    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3          1025      4865  30852832+   f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5          1025      2172   9221278+  83  Linux
/dev/hda6          2173      3447  10241406    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda7          3448      3460    104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda8          3461      4355   7189056   83  Linux
/dev/hda9          4356      4737   3068383+  83  Linux
/dev/hda10         4738      4864   1020096   82  Linux swap




Thanks,
Gautam