several reasons:
1/ users at XS asked for this
2/ it made sense to me thermally - many enthusiast cases have 120mm HD fan blowing directly in direction of back of card towarfds case exhaust
3/ this is an extrusion manufacturing process (reason why cost is so low), and we could only make the fins in that direction
5/ even when using a side panel fan, the HS still receives adequate cooling
correct
correct