[bramen]

  Yes, technically you could plausibly run it wired until 
  its charged enough but now there's the extra 
  inconvenience of managing a cable.

You have to manage the same cable when charging it from underneath, only now it's unusable until it's done charging...

I can see defending it on aesthetic grounds, and maybe even from a condescending place of not wanting the user to feel what it's like to use it tethered (I like Apple but they do this "we know what you want better than you" dance a little too much). But the point I quoted is pretty silly.