Why is checking button click in Unity done this way?

I find the Unity way of writing the GUILayout.Button in onGUI to check for button click to contract the way I am used to seeing UI code, in which you instantiate a UI object and set up a click event handler for it. What’s the reasoning behind doing it this way (from a framework creator’s viewpoint)?

function OnGUI {
    if (GUILayout.Button("Play")) {
        // button clicked  
    }
}

OnGUI is immediate mode. If you want something else, use GUITextures (which can use the OnMouseDown function), or wait for the new GUI system in Unity 4.something.