It's not just web servers. I would say that it is because they want it to be human readable/editable, but JSON would probably be just as good in that regard.

It's not just web servers. I would say that it is because they want it to be human readable/editable, but JSON would probably be just as good in that regard. I would prefer it if it were more like openssh or supervisor. Though I suspect those styles of configs are would make some of the more advanced configurations a pain.