It’s not to speed meta atleast not in my opinion and not for me at least.
It’s needed for a functional controller / gamepad support. I stated this suggestion also in this Controller issues thread post.
Currently you have to move the mouse pointer using the right controller stick and point on a item lying on the ground to be able to pick it up. It just does not work and is quite bad UX design.
If the controller support is to be added to the game you do not want to have a mouse pointer like an entity which needs to be positioned in the screen before certaion actions can be performed (either pickup an item, drop an item from inventory or attack a specific location target on the screen). Totally awkard and clumsy.
And if there is a controller button bind for “pickup nearest” based on your loot filter rules then why not allow to bind it to keyboard as well.
Try playing LE with a controller in its current state. You won’t like it, I bet.