What are the benefits of high water activity?

It is easy to see the shortfalls of high water activity when you look at water activity only as a way to control the growth of bad bacteria, but what if you want bacteria to actually grow in your product? The other thing is that texture depends upon water activity, so if you need to change your texture, you could raise the water activity. Another thing that is important to remember is that browning reactions occur at different water activities and you can change the water activity to control browning reactions.