Con: students may become lazier, refusing longer texts...

Pro: in my uni years, most lectures were voice + blackboard. No projectors / powerpoint, only those retro-projectors with transparent A4 plastic sheets put in the horizontal, with a mirror to project the light coming from below into the wall.
And before internet, the only books were the ones on the library. 

Today, with powerpoint + other softwares, classes may be much DENSER, more info/time. 
And with so much material available, it costs nothing for the professor to pick materials from various books, with different notations and conceptual setups - it may be confusing and/or require more reading to grasp stuff. 

So, a "condenser" may be an answer to cope with increased density and volume.