That arch. Oh my.
It's a solution to a sales and marketing problem dating back to the early 80's. In order to expand their potential customer base out of active sailors, boat builders had to increasingly move their designs toward the accommodations of power boats (think "Bayliner" to name only one) and still let the buyer have the illusion that they were living the romantic dream of being a "sailor".
First the helm was complicated by installing a more technical ($) wheel system to make steering more like an automobile, then the main sheet was removed from the cockpit to the cabin top and this added the cost of higher-part tackle and usually a winch.
Then a builder of "lifestyle" boats that shall not be named put an arch over the cockpit and put the traveler on top. This complicated the traveler adjustment as well as keeping the existing complication of housetop main sheeting. It raised the price, but buyers voted with their wallets anyway.
Customers, increasingly having little background in sailing smaller or more responsive sail boats, bought them and, often unaware of the drawbacks and just thinking that those drawbacks were 'normal' to all sailboats, partied happily at the dockside and sailed on nice days with wind speeds between 9 and 14 kts, in seas under 1.5 feet, which was the Performance Envelope most modern production boats are designed for.
Mind you, there are still a number of buyers who buy with full knowledge of the compromises they are getting and are content to live with those compromises. The others, and they may be the majority, seem puzzled by how some 'older' boats sail right by them on all points of sail; they do console themselves with the mantra from 90% of all brokers that those faster boats are restricted to "Crazy Racers" and are not suitable to real cruisers and all-around salty sailors like themselves.
(De Nile is more than just a river...)
Are there other viewpoints? Heck yes. I once brokered smaller used boats and some new ones, a rather long time ago. Met nice people. Some of them still sail actively. It's a big enough market that there is a boat for every person at every level.
The lack of sailing knowledge and comprehension of boat design (and build quality) among so many is kind of depressing, tho.