I'd guess it's mostly because it was 2003 and decent BLDCs were not super common-place yet. There were some older forms (steppers, PMSMs, etc) but they generall

I'd guess it's mostly because it was 2003 and decent BLDCs were not super common-place yet. There were some older forms (steppers, PMSMs, etc) but they generally didn't have very good torque/weight performance. Brushed motors would probably have been the answer at the time.