Because for some people it looks better that way. For simple statements, I often find placing braces on their own lines introduces too much of free space. With

Because for some people it looks better that way. For simple statements, I often find placing braces on their own lines introduces too much of free space. With a few things nested it often looks as if there were more braces than the code itself. And also, I like to group some statements together (by not having free space between them) and suddenly having to separate them by a free-standing brace breaks it. Of course all of this is just a matter of taste.