Holding the bow 1/4 of the way along effectively shortens the length of the bow. As many traditional players only use a small portion of the bow, it makes the bow slightly less cumbersome when playing fast jigs and reels.

All well and good if you don't want to play really long notes, with really long slow bow movements.

Classical technique has been honed over 100s of years and seems to work, with practice, for all manner of tunes.

I have several bows (including a cheap, Chinese carbon-fibre bow which gives me a lovely grungy sound, and a kid's 3/4 length bow) but I always hold the bow at the frog.

Decide what's best for you but there are no short-cuts. I think most musicians have had to correct bad technique when they've stopped making progress.