Tels wrote:
The <pre> element allows styling which pre-pending a ' ' to each line doesn't, which can be useful (and is used in places).
And inside <pre>, the {{template}} syntax doesn't work, while it works in ' '. This distinction might be important. (Whether this is a bug or a feature, I do not know :)
It's a feature -- <pre>-in-wiki essentially means: <nowiki> + <pre>-in-HTML.