The opening brace goes on the line of the statement because

• It saves vertical space: now I can see more code on my screen/window and have a bigger (over)view on the context
• As the closing vrace, it is just syntax and by that reason does not deserve a line of its own
• The closing brace has a line of its own, because the last line in the block is likely to change or new lines to be inserted before the brace.

(In an ideal world, my editor should optionally replace the line with the closing brace with a (coloured) hairline starting at the left indent of the block till the right edge of the windown.)

Maybe obvious from above: I am not a big fan of too much vertical whitespace. I'd forbid more than one blank line between logical blocks.