I think the point here is to prevent first-impression bias from emerging before the referee had time to at least skim the paper. So instead of thinking "this au

I think the point here is to prevent first-impression bias from emerging before the referee had time to at least skim the paper. So instead of thinking "this author is known for boring papers; I'm outta this" or "this author's papers have always been rare and deep; I'll really give this one a chance", you first give the paper a fresh look.