Well, you gotta figure that someone, somewhere in Dodge's engineering sector determined for whatever reason that the airflow should be directed over the exhaust manifolds, hence the vents are doing exactly what they're designed to do.
Jeremiah, notice I always put "functional" in quote marks, because, like you, prefer using the Old School definition.

However, the modern vents indeed ARE functional but, as Paladin says, for a different reason.