Your accuracy is greatly reduced while strafing. Its also more difficult to hit something moving. So you can stand still all you want and get better accuracy, or become a harder target with less accuracy. You lost the encounter? You got outplayed, wipe the tear away and hit respawn.
And LOL at strafing being a "console mechanic brought over".
Seriously though, I cut my teeth on Quake MP back in the day. Circle strafing for the win (worked great in UT and damned near everything else going forward).