It's purely semantical. It's about interface consistency - which is HIGHLY desirable for newcomers.
Try telling someone new to the Arduino community that this works as expected:
int myvar = 32;
Serial.print(myvar); // prints out "32"
whereas this doesn't:
byte myvar = 32;
Serial.print(myvar); // prints out a space
I am happier telling someone new to programming that
Serial.print(' ');
Prints a space (not the number 32)