Is there any reason for this? Doesnt make sense at all to me
Ive come up with a workaround for my case which is inspectable items in a horror game. Even if you pick up a letter in the dark I want it to become evenly light so the player can read it. In this case I change its lighting channel to 3 (unused so it recieves no light at all). Then I set the emissive color parameter on as you would with a unlit material.