commenting out the "filler" code that indeed, does nothing:

return:
;push acc 
;movc a, @a+dptr
;pop acc
inc a
sjmp return 

return:
;push acc 
;movc a, @a+dptr
;pop acc
inc dptr
sjmp return

The a or dptr is incremented which, in case they are return values, is significant.

Erik