Clayton,
Think of the MBG as an anchor point for all the SIP and RTP packets traveling between your voice network and SIP provider. The SIP trunk would terminate at the MBG, on the WAN interface if the MBG is in Server-gateway mode or on the LAN interface if you wanted to play dangerous and deploy in Server-only mode and NAT to it.
Without an MBG (SIP proxy), your voice network will have to be able to route to the SIP provider. This may introduce a security hole in your network.
Having a single point to proxy audio and SIP control packets is nice and convenient. Mitel knows this, and wants you to want it, and wants you to pay for it.
-b