Weather or not any part on a vehicle works better than another carries no weight in the manufacturers decision to use it, it's which is cheaper.
I partly agree, it's cheaper to use the better filtering of the paper filter and save the warranty claims from scored cylinders that come from the oil bath. During the era of oil bath filters an engine would usually need a ring job by 50,000 miles and a complete rebuild by 80K. Today's engines regularly get well over 200K before needing serious work. Part of that is modern oils but part is also better air filtering. Scored cylinders come from dirty oil which comes in large part from dirty air in the cylinders.
It would be nice to see a scientific comparison of the 'cleanness' of the filtered air between an oil bath filter and a modern paper filter to see who's assumptions are correct.
