[JefferMC]

I would think the reason someone would want to run a star topology vs. a single end-to-end would be a desire to retain some control in the event of a failure of a single point of the CAN wiring.

With a daisy chain arrangement with end terminators, the CAN bus cannot survive any physical failure at any point.

With a star arrangement, e.g. with discrete PWM cables, any single PWM cable can be lost and not affect the ability to control any other PWM.

I'm not saying it is possible to run CAN in a star topology. But I observe the move of Ethernet from a single coax bus arrangement with end termination to the current star topology and one of the reasons behind it is robustness.