Braun's whole appeal was about him wrecking shit and being flat out unstoppable. Yeah, he could have won Universal title at any time w/ the briefcase, but it wasn't needed based on what you said earlier with him being 'a monster who can destroy anybody at anytime'. Him having the briefcase isn't something I found to be as unnecessary as much as it was for him to fail at successfully cashing it in; neither proved to be beneficial. It was already bad enough that Braun had like 3 opportunities at the title beforehand and failed to win - and with a guy like him with the MITB briefcase, he STILL comes up short.
I just think it all made him look like shit.