[coffeeaddicted]

Yes, while maintaining code which other people wrote who are no longer around I often have to figure out what they might have tried to do. Being able to see how code looked before someone rewrote it can often give you an idea what it's about. Even better if the people even used good commit messages which explain why they fixed something and why they did it the way they did it.

Sometimes code only makes sense if you can see it's evolution.

Also knowing who wrote it you can ask those people sometimes about it.