They might've been trying freebsd back when pf wasn't well supported. Back when I last used openbsd (which might be nearly 20yrs ago now - eek), pf support on freebsd was lagging quite a bit.
Not sure what things are like now though - I'm guessing it's much better as pf was obviously the best option :)
My impression:
* PF was imported into FreeBSD from OpenBSD, maybe it had problems at first.
* Both implementations have been actively maintained, further developed, and diverged.
* There is now collaboration in the development of the FreeBSD and OpenBSD implementations.
* PF is the shit. Even though IPFW is the "invented here" firewall.