I… uh… I know it’s going to be an unpopular opinion, but it makes sense. It’s not intended for daily usage - macs wake up on a keyboard or cursor movement. Sitting on the back increases the chance of accidental presses when you are trying to plug something in.
You have a very few specific incidents where you would need to press the power button. 80% of their user base will not use the power button after the first initial press.
They are doing the Nike mistake - they are targeting users that have already purchased a Mac. Data-driven decisions are great, but this would just result in alienating people who are not already customers, or chase people out who are unhappy with this decision, so their next purchase will not be a Mac.