You missed the point, how many hours do you look at the book? how many hours do you want to be looking at the book? how many hours do you look at the character sheet? The character sheet is your cheat sheet for the game while you dont actually need rules or a character sheet to play an RPG the character sheet gets the most use.
Can you provide an example of where the characters sheet improved an actual game so much as to be a major factor in how the game played?
Vampire, Inspectors, any character sheet where the rules are on it. Even the Cthulhu one has some of the rules right there on the sheet. That means less time flipping in the book.
The art on the other had sets tone, again most white wolf games use a simplitic boarder to convey tone. Pendragon and Game of Thrones are also both good examples of tone setters. Some of the AD&D reboots set great tone. Its like playing by candle light or with props. They set tone.
Heres an example of a character sheet that sets no tone nor does it tell me much about the game, is it sci-fi, fantasy? what are the rules? im guessing % are used for hit location but thats about all i get.
http://www.mad-irishman.net/pubs/MI_MythusHPSheet.pdf
Now compare that to if Pendragon put most of the rules actually on their sheet and it was parchment with old style fonts. Which one helps set the tone better?
RPGs are a niche of a niche even when they are more popular than ever. A lot of that is people not wanting to read intimidating books in order to play. Its not like you just have to kick the ball in the net. The more intuitive you can make it the more people will come into the hobby. Of course its just an opinion and I am often wrong.