Yes, the special for loop syntax is to make it consistent with the "pfor" syntax. The "pfor" syntax is that way so that it can be parallelized.

Also, I can't believe I forgot to mention this in the post, but both for and pfor can sweep multiple iterators, so

    for (i in 0:10, j in 0:5) {
   }

Is equivalent to

    for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        for (j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
       }
    }