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Why define a new AAC subvariant and not use an existing (and actually unencumbered) multitrack stem format like mogg that's been around for for a decade now?

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I suppose there are more phones/mp3 players playing AAC files than the ogg format. It might gain more traction with this format. And the company behind it (Native Instruments) is really popular accross DJs and electro musicians (they do a lot of great hardwares and softwares).

So that the files are playable in any audio player that supports MP4.

Actually you mean exactly one player: iPod/iPhone. To play nicely with apple, you have to fork over the $2.50/copy. Ah well.

(Almost everything else currently using stems is mogg-based given the per-unit royalties for MP4 software support)

AAC is played by many devices, it's not an Apple standard, and the licensing fees are less than MP3.

Apple is one of the few vendors that supports AAC in exclusion of other formats (and, eg, ALAC in exclusion of FLAC, etc). And no, actually, AAC's declared licensing is considerably more expensive than mp3 (partly because AAC is a bundle of quite a few different codecs that share the same name).

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