It has the virtue of simplicity.
Yes, it does. I find the whole area of text reconstruction from computer analysis fascinating.
The interesting thing is that when biblical scholars make deductions from relatively small, multiply-copied fragments of text - and I'm not saying they're bad deductions - the fundamentalists lap it up as hard evidence for the historicity of Jesus. But take much stronger evidence for evolution from gene sequences or fossils, and all of a sudden it's indirect, conjectural, implausible, and wild-ass guessing.