Maybe the concept of desiring balance is modern. Maybe they wanted to encode asymmetry in the game to mirror nature, or the Master / Slave dynamic which they likely considered to be a natural law.

Every casino game is asymmetric. I believe the casinos are trying to encode the Charlatan/Chump dynamic.

The Netrunner card game is very asymmetric and very modern. I guess you could say it's balanced but nothing asymmetric can be perfectly balanced.

Or they just switched sides and played again, which is less silly.