Since we (usually) read/code going from left to right, when scanning code our eyes are usually on the left side of the page. This is especially true since most statements are short, and the most important parts are almost invariably at the beginning of the line. That's where the line wrap symbol should be, so that one can more easily distinguish between a new statement and a continuation of a previous statement. Additionally, this is how most editors which implement line wrap work, for good reason.

I haven't looked at the code, but this would very likely have the benefit of eliminating some of the glitches with the current line wrap implementation where the scroll bar will sometimes show up anyway (especially with variable-width fonts). This is likely because the line wrap algorithm is something like:

if the next char won't fit on the line
  remove previous char
  add line wrap char instead
  go to next line
...

The problem is that with variable-width fonts, the previous character may not be as wide as the line wrap character, so when the line wrap character is added the line still may be too long and the scroll bar shows up. The reduced line width caused by the scroll bar exacerbates the problem.