> - give more flexibility for managing the xlogs remotely
Not sure what you mean.
I can connect to the server if I want to query xlogs in a remote machine. If i depend on a standalone tool that reads the filesystem I'll need some kind of ssh access. Sometimes the DBA needs the info in the xlogs but doesn't have/want access to the SO. It's also easier to create a script that collect statistics about xlogs in machiune clusters.