I think you've conflated serialization and presentation here; if I can't reconstitute the whole object from the serialization provided, then it's not a serialization, it's a presentation. A valid presentation might be "the serialization of this object", but "a subset of this object suitable for display" is not a valid serialization.
I would argue that it merely allows for more automated (albeit implicit) generation of a View.
The goal here was to simplify the API endpoint creation process for the vast majority of use cases, and provide a standard output that could be easily recognized and consistently managed by any external software.
You might take a look at the Presenter pattern; Draper is an excellent implementation of it, which permits for this kind of "model-attached" view behavior, while maintaining proper MVC separations.