Gilded's the guy to talk to on this, but I'll offer a (potentially inaccurate) rundown on archtop history.
Archtop guitars kind of came into being in the '20s and were basically a rhythm instrument. They were mainly there to provide some chick-a-chick-a chords in the background -- horns were the melody/lead instruments. Horns are loud AF, so archtops like the Epiphone's Emperor or Gibson's Super 400 kept getting bigger and bigger through the '30s-40s, up to 17-18" and beyond in order to stay just audible in the mix. That tight, percussive, quick attack-and-decay sonic quality helped them stay in a pocket in the mix where they could be half-heard.
With early electrics and guys like Charlie Christian, guitar began to expand into a melody/solo instrument and you start to see pickups and cutaways appear. Still, the carved top archtop guitar was seen as "proper" and amplification just a way to make it louder so it could sit in front of the mix and carry a melody. While western swing acts like Bob Wills and tinkerer weirdos like Les Paul were happy to break with tradition and adopt solid body electrics in pursuit of their ideal electric tone, jazz is kind of a stuffy world, where tradition carries and even a guitar used with amplification 100% of its stage life needed to look like a guitar was supposed to. And, despite concessions to size and feedback inherent to maintaining the big archtop form, some of that tonal character actually does make its way through the amplifier, even with conventional magnetic coil pickups, so the form isn't completely anachronistic in its utility as a jazz/swing/etc instrument.
Basically, form followed function for a while, began to change as function changed, then sort of remained as traditional. Even the high tech modern jazz guitar makers who have non-standard f-hole shapes, sleek contours around the edges, new bracing patters, slick hardware, etc. are still following the traditional form and still trying to make the best possible version of the same kind of tone that's been around for years.
This may be total BS and I'm sure Harry, Walter or others can come in here and clean up after me, lol.
As for you, man, you might have a lot of fun picking up an inexpensive, acoustic, non-cutaway '40s carved top guitar, something like a Slingerland, Kay, Stewart, Orpheum or lower end Gretsch/Gibson/Epiphone. They can be a lot of fun to mess around with on the couch!