Why are C# arrays covariant and what benefits does it bring?

Question

I\'m having trouble understanding why arrays in C# are covariant and what benefits this covariance can bring. Consider the following trivial code example:

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Answer 1

Eric Lippert has a writeup about this (Actually a long series about 'variance', 11 parts I think)

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2007/10/17/covariance-and-contravariance-in-c-part-two-array-covariance.aspx

And some more interesting stuff

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2009/09/24/why-is-covariance-of-value-typed-arrays-inconsistent.aspx