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Sin and Grace: The debate over confession in 16th-century Germany introduces The Reformation of the Keys : Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany. The question of why the brief silent/private confession has been with me since childhood. I've benefited much from confession in the context of prayer gatherings of various size or with a pastor in private. Maybe you've thought about this also, here's part of the Books & Culture review which wrestles with this question:

[Martin] Luther himself was a strong advocate of private confession. For him, it was a source of invaluable consolation -- reassurance that the gospel was truly pro me ("for me"). In some ways, Lutheran confession was meant to be an antidote to the penitential mentality of late medieval confession. Congregants need not confess all their sins, but only make a general statement of sinfulness; the pastor was to offer unconditional absolution. There was no need for further penance. Where the medieval sinner was to be kept suspended "between hope and fear," Lutheran confession was meant to instill absolute confidence in personal salvation . . .

During the late 1520s and early 1530s, Nurnberg magistrates and theologians developed and then promulgated a new church order reflecting these new ideas. Like Luther, civic leaders were reluctant to do away with private confession altogether. Fearing that congregants might partake of the Lord's Supper unworthily, the new church order required pastors to interview Christians privately before communion. This was no Catholic interrogation. Rather, the interview was intended primarily to gauge the individual's knowledge of the "evangelical" message, since faith for Protestants depended on the correct understanding and perception of the gospel. During the interview, the pastor proclaimed free absolution to the sinner, commending it as a defense against despair. The congregant could confess as many or as few specific sins as he saw fit.