The idea seems to be very similar by keeping actual content separate from the final output rendering so that changing the template or styling is trivial.
2 things that spring to mind:
UPDATE: Regarding the idea behind it, I think the main goal is to get (most of) the benefits of a dynamic blog or cms engine, but all the performance (especially w.r.t. memory footprint) wins of static files. As a secondary benefit, this enables you to write your content in your favorite text editor and version it using your favorite version control tool.