It is a tactile thing for me. Maybe no better, but as I said I like the feel. I went through a woodworking hand tool sharpening phase about 20 years ago and did a lot of hand sharpening of chisels and plane blades. I use Japanese water stones in different grits: extra coarse (220), coarse (800), medium (1200), fine (6,000) & super fine (8000). When closing in on a mirror polished blade, there is a suction that holds the blade snugly to the wet stone, like an interference fit is created. Braking on a polished rim sidewall is a bit like that. Maybe one of the material science engineers (who absolutely ambush me here on these forums) can speak to the crystalline structure of different hardnesses and surface finishes for aluminum used in typical clincher rims.

One of these days I am going to give Velocity a call and ask about their polished rims. I thought I heard that they sub them out to a Harley Davidson motorcycle polishing shop. I purchased a set of the Aileron disc specific rims in polished for a disc bike that I really need to finish. Running a bike with these I think would look cool and also afford me the luxury of not worrying so much about the state of my rim brakes and sidewalls, LoL.