OSPF dotted-decimal area....Why??

Hello all,

I have recently seen OSPF areas configured as dotted-decimal and am trying to determine what advantage it has beyond area 32322243229 and area 192.168.30.29 being the same, with the latter more readable. I have rarely seen OSPF networks beyond 5 areas, and mostly everything is area 0. If you aren't configuring millions of OSPF areas on the same network, then what is the purpose? To me it looks messy and easily confusable for an IP or mask, at a glance.