Why do visa application forms ask which countries you’ve been to in the past years?

As an example, the US DS-160 form ask for every country you’ve been to in the past 10 years. But… what’s the rationale for asking this? Some ideas I have:

1. To enforce various travel bans, i.e. the VWP ban on visitors to Iran. But then why not just ask if you’ve been to Iran rather than for a full list of countries?
2. To collect intelligence data. But if you’re an actual government agent, wouldn’t you cover your tracks and not say the truth?
3. Because it’s an opportunity to reject you. The US government already knows where a lot of people in the world have traveled thanks to extensive intelligence databases so they can use this field to filter out people who lie about their history.
4. Because “that’s how they always did it”. No official rationale exists, it’s just something done without too much thought.

An official explanation would be ideal but I’d also accept credible third party analysis if no good official reasoning exists.