if you had to take the game apart a lot and move it, this isn't a bad solution for the power cord. The only problem is the power cords usually had a hitch/knot in them to act as a strain relief, so even if you disconnected the end, you'd need to untie the hitch to pull out the cord.

Most of the games routed the cord out of the machine a couple different ways, and I don't remember either of them being convenient:

1] the slot in the head method left part of the cord under the head getting squashed between the head and floor - or if you remove a nailed-on strap so the entire cord could be put inside the head, you better remember to route the cord back out before putting the head on (you won't remember the first time...or the tenth).

2] required you to put the cord in a slot in the top of the cabinet before/while setting the head on the cabinet

ideally, if your power cord has wide and narrow blades on it (NEMA 1-15 or NEMA 5-15 ... the standard plugs in the USA), the narrow blade wants to be connected to the gray (usually) wire in the game.

That connects the hot wire from the outlet to the wire going directly to the power switch. Minimizes the amount of circuitry that can shock you if you turn off the power using the machine's power switch.