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Just to wager a guess on this subject...
Blizzard's game files are protected from change to keep the end-user from exploiting them. It is easier to protect the file as a whole than to unpack it an examine each file individually for changes and only protect certain files in the archive. Protecting files within the archive individually would mean foreseeing every possible exploit that the modding community could come up with. If I'm anywhere close to the mark on this protecting individual files inside the archive seems like a whole lot of superfluous hassle to me. I believe I read somewhere that the files were checked at runtime to make sure they had not been tampered with.
Game files loaded from the clientside make for better load times and cut down on required bandwidth, but if any of you ever played a game called ROSE (Rush On Seven Epidsodes) years ago when it was in beta then you may remember an exploit to that game because textures could be modified in the client-side files. People were changing the textures for mobs to one solid color (specifically that pink color used for transparencies) that would not be found in great abundance in the game field. With the textures changed to solid colors a third-party program could search the screen for the color the mobs were and click on the mob and begin attacking it. This allowed a person to automate their toon while they were away. This is what I think of when I think of the possible exploits a person could do if they were able to change the game files.
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