Brake care and maintenance 101, from a FUBAR pic for visual aid

This took me a minute to grasp how this functions, I thought about racing applications, like the drilling and grooving for brake dust removal and cooling. Then when I couldn't get a handle on it, I know that some drum brake were finned really well on some early 60's cars.. esp. Oldsmobiles but this is direct brake pad to cooling fins... so WTF? Then I noticed the accompanying pic of an unwrecked rotor. So that was my reminder that those cooling fins are BETWEEN SOLID STEEL PLATES! How in the hell could that FUBAR brake been driven to that extreme? No effing way that wouldn't jerk the car to one side like a tbone from a Mack truck if the barkes were hit.