Potentially rhetorical

But if you know the answer, please share. I've been obsessed with pasta baked dishes lately. I want to make one but don't know how blah blah blah. So I go online just now to find a recipe for baked ziti (now that I know the name of a potential dish it makes it so much easier, just searching baked pasta dish doesn't get you anything really useful). So here's my question, if you're cooking the noodles and the meat beforehand, what's the point in putting it into a pan and baking it in the oven? I thought the point was that you didn't have to pre-cook anything and just tossed it into a pan. If you have a recipe for something like this that doesn't require pre-cooking please let me know that too. :)