Thank you!
The half-tile turning was a byproduct of the initial experimentation phase where I was worried the full-tile movement would feel too delayed from the player's input. It got left in as an afterthought once I moved onto designing the levels. It doesn't have any actual use other than for some potential speedrunning tricks like pushing two boxes at once or skirting between two launchpads.
If I ever decide to expand the game once the voting is over, I could make the half-turns toggleable. Or maybe replace it with some kind of UI element that could display the direction change before it happens.