Wouldn't it be better to stay tagged? If you are tagged you can set privacy settings to restrict views on photos tagged of you. Without that the photos are still visible.
It's more a matter of people being able to go to your profile and click a "view photos" link. Some people don't want to restrict privacy, but they don't want drunken pictures on their profile. In the event that my boss looks at me on Facebook, he won't go searching through friends' photos looking for things I untagged.