There are potential benefits in terms of collisions logic, organization of events, and flexibility of animations. Many things can be done multiple ways. It depends on the preference of the author which way they are more comfortable working with.
For Demonaire, there are still collisions to account for despite not utilizing physics.
Speaking in general, for a more extreme example consider a fighting game like Street Fighter, which uses multiple helper collision boxes separate from the animated sprite, such as hitboxes, hurtboxes, and pushboxes.