Personally, I much prefer text for manufacturing data. File size isn't a big deal for the intended use cases and that file contains setup information anyone can read and make use of. That's actually worth the format tradeoffs right there.

G-code generated from these files often contains that info, and some additional info specific to the job created. Same benefits of plain text.

Often, I get these files and that information being available, easy to read without having to have specific software is a huge win.

Humans do read these files :D