Please explain why the Jeopardy Style of e-mail composition is a "good thing"

I don't understand this, please help me out.  To me, the Jeopardy Style of e-mail composition, made popular by Microsoft, is a mess.  Imagine trying to tell a new user how to read an e-mail.  I envision it would go something like this:

1. Go to the bottom of the e-mail.
2. Find the beginning of the first e-mail.
3. Read the first e-mail.
4. Working your way back up, find the beginning of the first reply.
5. Read the reply.
6. Continue the process of moving up and down throughout the e-mail and it's replies until you have read everything in the order that it was originally written.

Replying to an e-mail would go something like this:

1. Try to remember everything you had read before (see previous steps).
2. Try to compose your reply in such a fashion that it might be understood without the context added by all of the previous content.
3. Of course, all of the previous content, including signatures and disclaimers from previous senders, is included below your message, in reverse chronological order.

Please, please help me understand why this is a "good thing"?  Or, is virtually everyone just a Lemming that is following the other Lemmings, not knowing why?

-Bob