We're all different. Why don't you ask Jonathan himself?
Here's the video I was referring to - check out the part beginning from around 6.10 into the video. Now could you reproduce this with 1 bass drum?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd9fcmBLbDQ
Actually I think it was another video (where he was explaining his setup in detail) but I didn't found anything else when I searched for it. But you get the idea anyway.
You know, as a guitarist I never cared for Fender & Gibson. Some never care about anything
except Fender & Gibson. That's the fun of it - everybody needs/wants different things and fortunately this stuff is around on the market (in fact, manufacturers are making good money out of it). So what's wrong?
BTW, I think your idea of playing 4 bass drums at the same time isn't too far a stretch. There are already pedals around which have 2 beaters (I have 2 of them - the Sonor Giant Step Twin Action), plus don't forget the Duallist as triple version. Admittedly those beaters are designed to be played on the same bass drum head but if some manufacturer wanted they might redesign this to actually hit 4 different bass drums without having to switch (double) pedals.
There's so many things across instruments which could make me scratch my head and think: bah, I don't need that - but that's the point - someone might need that. Isn't that something we should all accept? Now let's assume
you'd like to have some extraordinary/unusual setup. Would you like others to complain about it? Or would you simply
not care? We all have a choice. I'm trying to be more careful (at least by now) when deciding how much sense other peoples' stuff makes.
Hey all ya medal dubble base playrz - if ya like to play 4 base drummz - go fer it. ;-)