Might want to look over the uefi specification. There's also a book called "beyond bios developing with the UEFI" which goes on and on and on about modularity, how vendors can distribute just drivers that can be put together and interpreted, and all will work well if they follow the protocols. There's also a case study where you can easily have fast booting systems by not loading drivers that are not necessary
Re: Why (U)EFI at all?