To add to my Jim Henson counterpart...
Using the risers provides you with "steerability" which is to say you have enough control to make small adjustments. If my chute is touching yours we can slip away from each other or in the case of the videoed dumbass, enough to miss a freaking truck. Small corrections, not big corrections.
The MC1-1B...my backbreaker (literally) parachute. You can "flare" the canopies using the toggles. I never tried but I knew guys who could and did, but the timing had to be just so. Guys could perform standup landings under -1B's and -1C's, but if your timing was off it drove your dick into the dirt. You also had to do it at a higher altitude than you would a ram air skydiving parachute.
I bet Billy Waugh coulda steered it. He coulda steered it right up Ho Chi Minh’s ass.