I think the coil resistor that gets bypassed on slightly newer vehicles during starting was a hold over of that concept, although I have never thought it through exactly.
------------------------- As I understand it, the coil is designed for 6V and the resistor limits the extra current it would draw at 12V, except during starting when the battery voltage drops and the resistor is shorted out at the ignition switch Start position to boost the spark.
The resistor also speeds up the current rise when the points close, allowing higher RPMs. Coil inductance limits the rate of current rise, at the initial low current little voltage is lost in the resistor, the rest goes to the coil and speeds up its current rise.
The reason inductance limits the rise is because current change creates a changing magnetic field that generates a somewhat weaker opposing current and voltage. This is why motor starting current surge is much higher than running current.
When the breaker points open the current flow from the battery stops, the magnetic field it created tries to keep its opposing current flowing which builds up voltage, like a water hammer in plumbing. This voltage can arc across the open breaker points or the spark plug gap, but the condensor/capacitor wired across the points absorbs some of it and protects the points from rapid erosion, so it jumps the plug gap and ignites the mixture.
That's my attempt too make sense of electrical engineering. Here's another: