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I can play with my crossover such that stuff that would get sent to my mains goes to the sub as well.
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Yeah, you can do that, especially if you have "small" mains. You are then using your sub to recreate the signal that your mains cannot. Nothing wrong with that. I see your point here -- let's say you're using 10% of the mains' signal and sending it to the sub, call it a ".1". Why, then, have a separate .1 if you can just send the low frequency part of your mains to your sub using your receiver or pre/pro's bass management?
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can't the receiver peel off the LFE and send it to the sub anyway?
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Sure, and it should. I don't think I've ever seen it in reverse -- adding the LFE into the L/R and sending it to mains, although such a feature may be useful if you have no sub and do have an amp and speakers that could handle it. Anyway... As you know, LFE stands for something like Low Frequence Effects, so that channel has been designated for things that the "artist" doesn't necessarily want in the mains. The program material in the LFE is distinctly separate from the other 5-7 channels.
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Why even have a .1 channel? It's non-directotional anyway, unlike the other named channels.
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Also, those with "large" mains may not want to employ any bass management, and use only what's been programmed into the DVD's (or whatever format's) 5.1 or 7.1 channels. Maintaining the stereo signal to full range fronts can assist imaging. Although bass is generally considered non-directional below certain frequencies (usually 80Hz down, but I might even suggest it needs to be lower than that to be non-directional), it can still be localized. I can tell my sub's behind me from time to time during movies, less with music. I also have a sub in each of my mains, and those help smooth out that ability to localize the sub problem (for me).
One more thing -- if your DVD player is doing the DD/DTS/whatever decoding and you are using the 5.1 or 7.1 channel inputs on your rec/pre/pro (or perhaps even an integrated amp of some sort...), then you have no bass management, and can still get all the workings of the format. Probably an unlikely usage in this day of reasonably-priced receivers, but possible, I suppose.
So, I guess I don't know the official story, but that's my best reasoning for this morning!
Have a nice day!