I don't think there is consistency in this. It's the same with punching holes: Draw a face, pushpull it to some thickness, draw a grid (with Windowizer, for instance) and push-pull one grid face to make a hole. Now start double-clicking on the rest of the squares. Most often than not, some of them do not make a hole, but leave two z-fighting faces instead, or then at some stage the bottom face of the box disappears completely.
Anssi