Very cool, Matei, that is simpler overall. The reason I went with the approach I did is when you use it with a touch device you can “fling” it and “catch” it again mid flight, arresting its momentum. I originally did this to mimic mobile OS-like scrolling behavior. Though this is only apparent right now if you move the mouse again after “catching” it, some tweaking to be done there.
But I think I could probably simplify it as you mentioned.