no, not at all.
In your case you didn't really have an OR clause, because the "form is in change mode" is really not related to the data. So in your case it wasn't necessary to make that part of the filter, but rather decide if it should be in the filter or not.
Because your one clause was going to be either true, or false, if it was embedded in the filter your filter would look something like;
'(A_USE:Active = ''1'' or true) AND A_USE:Administrator <> ''2'''
which is obviously the same as
'1 AND A_USE:Administrator <> ''2'''
which is the same as
'A_USE:Administrator <> ''2'''
or, if the form was not in change mode then
'(A_USE:Active = ''1'' or false) AND A_USE:Administrator <> ''2'''
which is the same as
'A_USE:Active = ''1'' AND A_USE:Administrator <> ''2'''
Cheers
Bruce