Hello Paul,
I think Abdulkhaliq123 was talking about from an incentive PoV - why be a block approver when you can get the same reward for doing nothing, essentially?
If you reward each upoc approver the same amount as each block approver, then no one will approve blocks. On the other hand, if you divide the epoc reward between all nodes, then the amount of the reward will be zero because you can just sybil attack it.
Block approval award is separate from epoch approval in approximately the same amount (over an epoch). For example, let's say
1. 100 blocks in an epoch
2. block approval award 1 coin * approver's network stake fraction
3. epoch approval award 100 coins * approver's network stake fraction
So, if an approver has 10% stake in the network
1. Approving epoch awards 100 * .1 = 10 coins
2. In addition, if they approve 90 blocks in that epoch, they additionally get 90 * 1 * .1 = 9 coins
3. If they also create one or more blocks in the epoch, they get creator awards + transaction fees
Hope it makes is clearer.
Shunsai