I've spoken to authors who joined during a "liquidity crisis" when they got all three currencies in their payout at once. They liked getting the STEEM so they could immediately power up. Of course, they would have gotten a better deal if they were paid in SBD and traded it for STEEM. But that was more complication than they wanted to deal with and when the liquidity crisis was over, they felt a little inconvenienced.

So yes, in terms of price action, the SBD payout would have been "better" economically. But in terms of convenience, it was worse, to them.

Terms like "better" need context.