Why is there a minivend server ?

[Nicolas Huillard <nhuillard@ghs.fr>]

I am evaluating this product, which seems to be very good for everything it's meant to. I have a simple but technical question : why is it made up with an independent server, aside from the HTTP server ?
The fact is that creating a good server could be very difficult, and requires a lot of very technical skill, which are very different from the ones needed for the application itself.
The Apache group is working on the HTTP server, which allows external modules to be loaded, and the server itself takes care of sessions, connections, reloading, memory cleanning, looging, etc.
Why is it better to use this strong server as a simple gateway that will call another back-end server (minivend), with exactly the same arguments, that server serving everything on the site ?
It seems that Apache isn't needed ? But the doc says that the included HTTP server can't be used in real world.
The doc also states that minivend can serve as much as 1000 catalogs. Everyone knows that the problem is not the number of catalogs, or the number of different pages (in the case of a static site), but the number on simultaneous requests that can be served.
Has anyone have clues to help me determine if this product can serve heavy loads ?

TIA,

Nicolas Huillard