So, in ten words or less, what is the reason?

Why do we learn to factor integers in various ways? Beethoven spends a lot of musical energy refactoring simple meters so that it is impossible to tire of them. But, not knowing that, most of us never advance beyond counting to two in a 2/4 bar.

For that reason I have often fantasized about staging a massive "happening" where quarter-note balloons would be positioned along all the major arteries and on all the bridges around Manhattan (why not the world?) and at a given signal all would be popped, once and for all.