It's like taking the scenic route on your home from work. Its not the most efficient, but its nice. We tend to be direct only when the main purpose of conversation is information transmission. When there is no hidden relational message. If not heeded, saves face of commander can be interpreted as lack of respect appear weak or uncertain High context cultures like Japan use indirection a great deal.
Indirection is seen as more polite than directness.
Polite and indirect speech are easier to ignore. So very high status people use it, and so do very low status people.