Yeah. Private in BlitzMAX is a block style command, and not a traditional access modifier, as you might be acustomed too from Java or C#.
i think there are some things, such as this one, that are well intentioned, but are executed kind of poorly and are a nuisance to use, rather than being exciting and helpful.
From what I understand BRL fully intends to add full access modifier support to BlitzMAX at some point. ATM though I think they pretty much have their work cut out for them with the upcomming GUI and 3D modules. I think it's because BRL was trying to make everyone happy.
I think that's probably pretty accurate. More importantly, despite all the small annoyances, I think they found a good compromise.