>>difftime()

I see absolutely no value in that function because all it does is subtract the two parameter values and return the result as a double. When time_t is an (unsigned)integer then the double return value is just plain inconvenient because it would have to be typecast back to time_t. So the program might as well just subtract the two time_t objects and be done with it.

>>that rather than doing it the "right" way, the "easy" way was chosen?

You consider calling a function just to subtract two numbers is the "right way" What a waste of cpu time.