I know, but for someone who wonders how a 200+km race can be decided at photo-finish it would maybe be more intuitive to split the race into "regions", with a sprint at the end between those in the lead. And that sprint is usually very similar to what a normal sprint stage would look like. I can see the point of asking "is it really necessary to separate them if they've been pretty much equal for the whole time?", but to me at least it does improve the experience of watching the race unfold on a few levels. It's supposed to be a competition, after all.