[Al Skierkiewicz]

BlackShadow,
OK, you have a lot in your post that needs to be addressed....
You are correct that the longer a battery cable becomes the more power is lost, at 200 amps that amounts to about .1 volt per foot of wire (both black and red please) but that has nothing to do with the distribution panel.
Yes, you are also correct that a simple positive post and a negative post would be electrically identical but that implementation makes insulating the two posts difiicult leaving exposed electrical (high current and unprotected by breaker) connections.
Yes there is a lot of empty space inside the distribution blocks. These blocks cover a wide range of product and the size is meant to allow these different products to be stacked next to each other on the same rail. In practice, you could have #22 control wiring , #26 data cable, #18 low voltage solenoid wiring, relays, #12 or #14 AC 110 volt wiring and #6 or #4 three phase 208 volt motor wiring on the same set of blocks. The need to consider insulating all of these mixed schemes is accounted for in the design. The insulation between and among the blocks is designed to prevent arcing between terminals of more than 300 volts.
Yes, you could build the robot with one or two ATC fuse panels. The current drawn by the high current motors then flow through the same wires that feed the RC and as pointed out above, at 200 amps, that is 0.1 volt per foot. Add more motors (say four small and two large Chalupas) and the current can now cause a 0.3 volt/ft. drop. Add that to four feet of battery cable and the internal resistance of the battery and you are dangerously close to the 8 volt cutout of the RC. By splitting these high current loads away from the rest of the wiring as close to the battery as is possible allows the RC voltage to remain high while the motors receive less.
Yes, you could drill through all the blocks and attach the battery cables that way, but the manufacturer has provided a jumper module that is capable of high currents. If you design your distro properly, you can actually attach the battery at the center of a jumper and thereby split the currents right in the block.
BTW, to give credit where due, it was Tom Edison and the DC wiring, Ben was the nut with the kite in the rainstorm.