That's not true. Rotations in 3D space are 4D objects: a 3D orientation and a 1D magnitude.
Rotors use a.b with aXb, and quaternions use magnitude and 3D direction vector.
Rotors use a.b with aXb, and quaternions use magnitude and 3D direction vector.
Rotations do involve magnitudes when interpreted as an axis (2 dimensional manifold embedded in R^3) and a magnitide (0 to 2pi)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis%E2%80%93angle_representat...
SO(3) is a coordinate-free abstraction that isn't relevant to the topic of GA vs Quaternions for calculating concrete values in computer graphics