[throw0101c]

> Why would one prefer to add sudoedit X to sudoers rather than updating file access privileges of X directly?

Permission complications.

Software may run as user:group, but you don't want to add humans to either, and so you allow them to edit a few files as that user or group from their own account (which also gives you auditing of changes). Some software insists on files (directories) have certain permissions so you're stuff with them.

Or you want a centralized place for permissions, so you put these sudoedit entries in LDAP which can be accessed anywhere in you network, and so you don't have to keep track of individual file permissions on a gazillion systems.