Maybe this is an oversimplification, but I think the point of the article is "if you're going to do something in a non-standard way, there should be a reason", and the author didn't see an obvious reason for BMW's deviation.

As a motorcyclist I don't see an immediate, obvious advantage to the BMW approach vs. the standard approach but like most things on motorcycles, you may need to actually use it before it makes sense to you.

So it looks like I now have an excuse to spend some time riding Beemers...