Probably undiscerning cut-and-paste from some FUD article, without actually verifying it themselves. I say this because the text of the article might have changed since that little nugget was stashed away, as one can find the following text in the linked article: "Next, wait for the recovery process to finish, which might take a few days or more." And I say "without verifying it" because, well, that has nothing to do with changing your password. Had it actually been tried, it would become evident that these are two very different operations.
Translation: we can't be bothered to come up with a secure solution so we offload that onto our users.
Not sure where you got that quote from - it's not in the link you pasted.
Try this link.
> Account recovery is an automated process designed to get you back into your Apple ID account* as quickly as possible and deny access to unauthorized users. For your security, recovery might take several days or longer, depending on the verification information that you can provide.
No, it's not. Try recovering your iCloud password from the web right now. I couldn't believe it either.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204921
"For your security, recovery includes a waiting period that may be several days or longer depending on the information you can provide to verify your identity. Apple Support cannot help you shorten this time. "