Aren't you desperately trying to pull yourself out by reaching for straws? Block header is nothing but a part of the block.
When you borrow a book from the library do you read the book or the library :-)


Your original claim was that (persumably) in 8i Oracle doesn't have to read blocks if you are asking only for pseudo columns and not for the real columns.
I said: that is what I have heard and I asked if it is true. Read carefully!