I think it's because the year in the garden starts slow, then gets faster and faster and faster 'till you're in February and EVERYTHING needs to be done RIGHT NOW and then you hit the equinox and look around and say 'where did summer go?'.
And suddenly it's all done (or woe betide if it isn't), and there's less to do because a) growth is slowing so the mad dash of harvest-bed prep-sow is slower too; and b) because if the carrots, beets, leeks, kale and brassicas aren't in now, there's not a whole lot of point worrying about them until next year.
So there's time to do a bit of weeding, and to put up the portable poly tunnels over sowings of lettuce, rocket, endive and coriander.
My feeling is that the extra harvest work of bending over is more than made up for by not having to nip, trellis and tie. This is especially so as these activities come right at the start of the busy season where one less job is a godsend.
Again, with the sprawling vines, there are more damaged fruit than you'd see on a trellised plant, but...the net yield of the sprawling vines is still much greater even with the spoiled fruit.
I reckon that for every ten kilo of Stupice I harvest, there's about half a kilo of damaged fruit (which goes into sauce). The game changes with the larger varieties, though. My Rouge de Marmande vines are busting out in small clusters of huge fruit, but the bigger the fruit the greater the likelihood of damage.
But then again, with the workload easing, some Autumn afternoons are so perfect......