Powdermonkey,
Argghh, my noggin hurts! And I'm winging it by joining the dots here! I think the point is that the wire needs to be thin to maintain the voltage but reduce the current to prevent the 'overspeed' problem of the fat series wound. But as you say the resistance is higher, so it is placed in parallel.
Resistance for parallel resistors is
1/rtot = 1/r1+ 1/r2 + 1/r3 etc.
So the total resistance is always less than any single resistor.
This maybe a question for the Tech Log forum?