What you're saying makes sense, but it applies oppositely too in that tab is non-physical and notation very physical. Example, if you see a scale in musical notation, it's immediately obvious that it's a scale just from a 50 millisecond glance, whereas in tab it's not obvious that it's a scale until you read/play through it.

When you become adept with musical notation, this is one of the primary hindrances of tab.