Note that there are two measurement systems involved: first the camera, and then the human eyes. Your reasoning could be correct if there were only one: "the sensor is most sensitive to green light, so less sensor area is needed".

But it is not the case, we are first measuring with cameras, and then presenting the image to human eyes. Being more sensitive to a colour means that the same measurement error will lead to more observable artifacts. So to maximize visual authenticity, the best we can do is to make our cameras as sensitive to green light (relatively) as human eyes.