Why was the global-mode-string moved?

[John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org>]

I found this entry:

2002-08-21  Kim F. Storm  <storm@cua.dk>

	* bindings.el (mode-line-format): Moved global-mode-string last.
	(mode-line-position): Moved %p first.  Added padding to %l/%c to
	eliminate jumpyness in modeline.  Use (%l,%c) format if both
	line-number-mode and column-number-mode are enabled.

Why was this done?  I liked having the time of day, my current
battery level, etc., *before* the minor-mode-alist.  Since the
minor-mode-alist has a tendency to be large, it now pushes
everything so far off to the right that the mode-line is nearly
useless.

I can fix this for myself, but can anyone tell me why it shouldn't
be moved back?  I think the minor-mode-alist should be close to the
end, since the information it conveys is less often reference than
the other details on the mode-line.

John