True but you can easily have 30-40 items in a list, all readable without having to scroll. Text labels are a small fixed height, but a long and widely variable

True but you can easily have 30-40 items in a list, all readable without having to scroll. Text labels are a small fixed height, but a long and widely variable width, so it makes sense to stack them rather than put them end-to-end. Also a scrolling pane is a standard UI element that is well accepted by users.