plus it gives pilots a programmed arrival route with a known max track miles to touch down.
True, but what pilots really want is the realistic minimum track miles to touch down. When I used to fly to Dublin, the only thing known about track miles was that they were going to be a lot shorter than that shown by the full STAR. Generally speaking, on the VATRY arrival, the ‘arc’ to DW706 was cut off and we got a vector to intercept the LOC, or direct to LAPMO, which reduced the track mileage by about 30nm.