Some rationale behind the pickup being a little farther away from the bridge could be to balance out the volume of the pickup. As is often the case not only does the sound of the pickup get brighter being closer to the bridge but the output volume gets lower. That is the reason most bridge pickups are wound a little hotter.
Yes, of course. But as I've said perhaps once too many times on here before, I don't like it. It also gives the lead pickup more low end, and quite a bit less treble, and the effect is pretty dramatic. It might for a slightly more useable bridge pickup tone when using the bridge pickup by itself, more suitable for rock tones or less spiky clean tones. But the guitars get a lot more mellow sounding on the whole, ruining a lot of the magic that's in the neck/bridge combination. It gets tubby and woolly instead of twangy and hollow sounding.
The current crop of affordable Gretsch guitars have the same thing, a bridge pickup that sits in between the traditional bridge and middle pickup locations, and I don't like it one bit. Not only does it make that bridge pickup too mellow sounding for my taste, the location of the pickup interferes with my picking hand more than the traditional, closer to the bridge location.