http://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2011/11/11/the-star-wars-saga-suggested-viewing-order/
It's mostly to preserve the actual shocks and surprises of the original 3 movies (siblings, father, yoda, etc). Plus, it completely removes the first movie which has no greater revalance to the rest of the story and torpedoes midecloreans which ruins the whole "space magic" fun of Jedi. All in all, it works surprisingly well. I was totally shocked at how you can skip Episode 1 because they reintroduce every character in the second and third movies.
That just sounds like you found a crazy person, as that's not even a justification for watching the movies out of order. That's more of a justification for not watching the "Specialized" editions of the movie (disclaimer: I'm a crazy person that has the "despecialized" editions on Blu-Ray and really like them).
As for your second question, there aren't many movies where they aren't released in chronological order, or where the prequels kind of spoil/ruin major plot points of what are supposed to be their sequels.