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The bounty system incentivizes people to provide good answers to difficult questions. But if the person offering a bounty later provides the best answer, SO does not allow him to claim the bounty—in effect penalizing him for his effort.
If people are really gaming the bounty system by regularly claiming their own bounty, why not find a way to detect/deter that behavior without penalizing the people who legitimately deserve to claim their own bounties?
Well, I don't see how one could "game the system" using bounties, as the bounty goes off the rep of the person offering it. Even if one could claim their own bounty, they would only get their rep back. At least in terms of reputation, there is no "gaming the system".
Not allowing this means that people understand that they can't just offer a bounty, get good answers, give their own fake answer and reclaim the bounty rep (so, getting to have a question in "bounty mode" for free). You may consider this to be "gaming the system".
This is one reason that claiming your own bounty is no longer allowed - and it is not possible to easily distinguish genuine cases from bad behaviour.
