because big nobby tires are impossible to ballance. this along with a few other techniques is an attempt to internally ballance the tires
Not impossible, just a PITA. Doing it "right" involves shaving the tread to make it perfectly concentric and taking them to a heavy truck shop for balancing ("normal" tire balancing machines are not big enough to do anything over ~35").
On the 8th day god created the Super Swamper TSL and said "go forth and kick ass"