[Dylan16807]

I don't really see it as the same thing. Using multiple fields of bits works fine here. 60 possibilities for seconds and minutes fit very well into 6 bits each. A raw 24-bit integer gives you plus or minus 2330 hours, and if you don't reserve a bit the format they actually went with gives you plus or minus 2047 hours. Since it just needs to represent 999 hours and change, that's fine.

The problem is the weird non-bit packing they did before.

DOS is different, partly because there are fields that fit worse, and partly because 32 bits is just barely enough to store seconds in the first place. If you did a DOS-style packing with 34 or 38 bits it would work fine. And it would be able to represent leap seconds, making it arguably better than unix timestamps!