There are probably other factors (some shapes just are more readable...) but I believe it's a big part of it yes.
There was a typography trend in the late 90s, 2000s, and you still see echoes of it, towards "mathematical," "geometric" design in fonts. Eg using exactly the same curves, exactly the same bowl size and proportion, exactly the same serif etc across all characters. Now this is mostly regarded as a dead end. The text ends up feeling inhuman or bland, and the readability gains are at best negligible but often simply worse. It seems that the small inconsistencies aid quick character identification, if not too distracting.
Right now the trend is more towards specific, intentionally introduced inconsistency. Most of them are too subtle to notice unless you're specifically studying the font, but ideally in aggregate they give it a certain organic feel and differentiate similar shapes used in different characters.
There was a typography trend in the late 90s, 2000s, and you still see echoes of it, towards "mathematical," "geometric" design in fonts. Eg using exactly the same curves, exactly the same bowl size and proportion, exactly the same serif etc across all characters. Now this is mostly regarded as a dead end. The text ends up feeling inhuman or bland, and the readability gains are at best negligible but often simply worse. It seems that the small inconsistencies aid quick character identification, if not too distracting.
Right now the trend is more towards specific, intentionally introduced inconsistency. Most of them are too subtle to notice unless you're specifically studying the font, but ideally in aggregate they give it a certain organic feel and differentiate similar shapes used in different characters.