The truly awesome part is that it wasn't planned as such. Wolfman's said in interviews since then that he originally was going to have a huge Deathstroke vs. Changeling throwdown, trying for the most epic single-issue fight ever, yadda yadda yadda, pretty standard stuff... but when he sat down at the typewriter to try and write it, it just *wouldn't come*. He just couldn't get Slade and Gar to beat the hell out of each other for twenty pages.
Specifically, he couldn't get his mental image of Slade Wilson to participate in the fight, because of the way he'd been developing in recent issues. Finally, Wolfman realized he wasn't going to be able to find a way to have them settle their differences with their fists, and when he realized that Slade was going to find a way to end it nonviolently this time, the story flowed like turning on a faucet.
Moral of the story: Writers, don't try to force your characters to do things just because it's expected of the genre. Sometimes, letting them do exactly the opposite, when in-character, results in a MUCH better story!