Having rudder and propeller on different stations can be useful to organize work on the bridge, especially on a warship. The possibility of having the two propellers on different stations is imho insane. The only reason that I can think of is a runaway "safety" requirement ~"if one prop control fails you still must be able to take control of the other prop on a different station". That would fit what the article says about them essentially running in manual backup mode all the time and not in the intended mode of operation.