Is there anything to support this? I couldn’t find anything that really has this intend documented and Intel weren’t the only on pushing for usb as the most simple protocol possible ( I recall a lot of excitement about the “u” part… How naive at least I was back then!).
I’m not knowledgeable enough to really argue against it, looking simply from an Okham point of view as “they wanted everything to connect” - the printer in the same way as that PDA… Plus Intels de facto (IT) world domination at the time it just seems unlikely.
Edit: some sentences didn’t make even less sense, fixed.