What are the benefits of utilizing laravel's "Routes" opposed to having a custom bootstrap that splits the URL based off '/' and then the bootstrap can automatically load the controller and pass functions and parameters. Here is an example of a custom Bootstrap I have used. I am new to laravel and just trying to conceptually understand as there are several terms/features I am not used to.

class Bootstrap
{
    function __construct()
    {
	    $url = isset($_GET['url']) ? $_GET['url'] : null;
	    $url = rtrim($url, '/');
	$url = explode('/', $url);
	//If url is empty load homepage
	if(empty($url[0]))
	{
		$url[0] = 'index';
		$page = 'index';
		require 'controllers/index_controller.php';
		$controller = new Index();
		$controller->renderView($url[0], $page);
		return false;
	}
	//If url isn't empty is the controller available
	$file = './controllers/' . $url[0] . '_controller.php';
	if (file_exists($file))
	{
		require $file;
	}
	else
	{
		//Controller not found
		require 'controllers/error.php';
		$controller = new Error();
		return false;
	}
	//if controller is found create new object
	$controller = new $url[0];
	$controller->loadModel($url[0]);
	if (isset($url[4]))
	{
		$controller->{$url[1]}($url[2], $url[3], $url[4]);
		return false;
	}
	if (isset($url[3]))
	{
		$controller->{$url[1]}($url[2], $url[3]);
		return false;
	}
	//If parameters are specified pass the method and parameters to the controller
	if (isset($url[2]))
	{
		$controller->{$url[1]}($url[2]);
		return false;
	}
	//otherwise just pass the method call to the controller
	else
	{
		if (isset($url[1]))
		{
			$controller->{$url[1]}();
			return false;
		}
		else
		{
			//if no method is called just display default view for the controller
			$controller->renderView($url[0], 'index');
		}
	}

    }
}