So, IOW, it's not purely a point of style, it's more about what's a sane way to write things given the requirements of the language's syntax when you're dealing with pointer declarations?

Which would explain why it seems so odd to me; I spent a fair amount of time in C-style languages, but typically only ones that lack pointers.

I think it can be both, plus communication: communication to n00bs, to yourself in the future if you're really tired, etc.

Though, if the goal is communication, wouldn't it be clearer still to use typedefs to clean up more complex declarations a bit? Or does that end up making things worse?

People do that if such a type is used a lot but probably not if it's just a one-off, just like when they write a function instead of using the same snippet a lot but don't if it isn't.