Apologies, you're correct -- my information was wrong. [1] Now I'm curious to experiment myself to see if I could tell the difference! And congratulations on your excellent eyesight. :)

The only seeming authoritative source I could find that justifies why it was ultimately removed is from an "ex-macOS SWE" here [2].

[1] https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/8277/how-d...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17477526