Security – storing uploads outside web root

Does WordPress (out of the box) have the ability to store uploads outside the root directory? I made the following settings:

Store uploads in this folder: – /absolute/path/to/uploads/outside/web/root
Full URL path to files: http://www.example.com/images

I then had to create a php script to read files out of the /absolute/path/to/uploads/outside/web/root directory and an htaccess rule to handle the full path (since it is a non-existent folder).

However… I don’t like this solution… any ideas? Everything is working… but since WP gives the ability to set different locations, I figured it should have the ability to read the files from the upload folder.