Lighting fixture removed, only hot wired to switch
the switch only has the hot wire connected, and the neutral wire from the light fixture is pigtailed in with the neutrals of the canned lights. Any help on why it would be wired this way is greatly appreciated.


Because this is the way normal household switches work.

Normal household switches are single-pole, single-throw switches. That is, they only break one side of the circuit, like this:

------------\ ---------------+
                             B
-----------------------------+


Where the top line represents the hot, switched line, the B is the bulb and the bottom line represents the neutral.

If you have a switch wired like this:

------------\ ---------------+
                             B
------------\ ---------------+


That's a double-pole switch and is unnecessary in residential wiring.

It's common in a double-gang box to bring the power in and send two load lines out, one to each switched device. 


One would tie all the neutrals under one wire nut. 
Under a second wire nut, you would tie all the grounds, then have 2 pigtails out, one to each switch (to ground the switches)
Under a third wire nut, you would tie the incoming hot and 2 pigtails, one pigtail would go to a screw on each switch. Then, the leads out to the loads would each have one hot wire going to the other screw on the appropriate switch.


It sounds like this is exactly how your switches are wired.