I think that's probably because there have been a couple of infamous cases of people here with lowered cars and questionable aftermarket intakes managing to get water in them. It seems like most of the less expensive "cold air intakes" end up sticking the filter down near the brake ducts in the front bumper and it's down hill from there.
To the point of your original question, the early tis with the M42 and maybe even some of the early M44 models had the snorkel that runs directly from behind the headlight into the front of the airbox. My understanding is that it was lengthened and sent to the other side for noise abatement. Years ago I modded mine to use both intake paths and it works just fine. I have no idea if there's any improvement in anything with that set up, but it was about $13 in parts and a couple hours of time. You wouldn't know it was there if I you weren't told. There's a write-up about it in the notebook section. | 
Hybrid Mode
