Spiral wound housing compresses under load and decompresses when the load is removed. The longer the housing, the more it moves. This made for slop in converting movement from one end of cable to the other. Before the days of indexed shifting, all housing was spiral wound. Short housing runs minimized the amount of compression, making for more precise shifting and braking. Friction was also an issue, particularly before lined housing was commonplace.

In that light, quality bikes had brazed on cable stops, while cheap bikes ran housing end to end. It was once a distinguishing feature.

With better and even compressionless housing, it's less of a concern. Cable stops still have the image, to some anyway, of quality.