This is a nice workaround, Jason did you set your channel statuses all to have the same step number?
Otherwise one problem would be that it can only track once per lead.
For example if I send a sales email today I will be set to sent, that lead opens it and he will be set to opened then if I send that leads another sales email next month his status is already opened. A lead cannot go backwards in a program status so wouldn't get back to sent.