Because it's more than that. It wasn't originally to speed up run time, but compile time. That history is wildly fascinating to me. We tend to take compile time for granted, unless we are bitching about Scala, or compiling C++ at Google.
The author also addresses the importance of history. Voodoo knowledge _does_ pervade modern computer science, and I for one am happy to see something different.
But is it really? I'm inclined towards anonymouz's and adamnemecek's idea here: Dr Richard clearly says indices are offsets, no? It's nice the author gets all sentimental about it, but that doesn't make him right.
