Yes.

For me it depends on where I have lived. Higher if I am doing a lot of climbing and descending, lower if just using them to corner. Depends on individual bike geometry and comfort.

I would not say it's automatically more aero... it would have to be tested in both setups

The primary reasoning is ease of fit and adjustment, as well as providing more freedom in the design of bars and front ends.

When you can move the pads up and down without changing the tension on brake/cable/wire tension, it's much, much quicker. Even moving the bars, which can affect the shifters a bit, is still much easier than doing stem swaps, etc.

I just got an Alpha One and it's an absolute dream for homebrew aero testing. You can do the artillery-style walking back stack and reach over a 3-4 cm range to find the most aero position with just one Allen wrench, a minute or two per change. No need to take the bar off the headtube every damn time, having to constantly align and torque it, etc.

Historically, it was more aero. The pad risers were oval/airfoil shaped, whereas rising the basebar meant putting round spacers under the stem. Given the integrated nature of many front ends today, this is not always the case.

Ideally you are positioning the basebar where it is ideal for your fit (typically at a height where it is comfortable for climbing and cornering), and then using risers and fore/aft adjustment to place the aerobars in the ideal position. What often happens is that the bike is set up this way, but subsequent adjustments are made (for convenience) in a way that may move both the basebar and aero position when the goal is only around adjusting one of those positions (ex. putting spacers under the stem).

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Thanks!