node

No answer:
How Can I Search Unpublished Content?
http://drupal.org/node/300803

Romania had a similar issue:
Can't access unpublished content that needs editing
http://drupal.ro/node/2394

(Off topic, but something of a solution to Romania's issue:)
Using Drupal's Workflow and Revision Moderation Modules Together
http://www.dave-cohen.com/node/1732

Motivation for this function: sure, we could use a plain node_load($nid) and wrap every $node->field['0']['value'] in a check_plain or the function for rendering with the proper input format (check_plain). The proper format is available to be grabbed from the data provided by a regular node_load.