Whatever's going on here looks convoluted enough -
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/107/315442494_6d3239a0ff.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2010/2028067672_2ba6479d74.jp...
Seems pretty hard to tell what solution is 'obviously superior' unless you're a rocket-moving engineer or somesuch.
Because it's pad was built on top of an earlier Apollo pad the shuttle launches in the wrong orientation and has to make a roll just after takeoff to head into orbit.
The Russians copied this non-optimal arrangement for Buran believing that there must be some advantage that they didn't know about but Nasa had discovered,
Any rocket needs roll, pitch and yaw to get into the right orbit, or to reduce stress along a certain axis, or to orient comms antennas towards the ground. Saturn V did this too.
The aspect of this I find more surprising is that the Soviet space program went so far in emulating the entire idea of a reusable space plane, well after it must have become quite clear just from the US experience that it's very hard, very expensive and likely incapable of meetings its original design goals.
This is a better article than Wikipedia's: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm
But yes, of course, I tell it mostly as a joke to counter the space pen story. I'm sure that there is some reasonable rationale for this solution.