Don't you need a credit card to open a Paypal account, and doesn't Paypal charge that credit card for purchases? Why not just use your CC directly with Apple?
I know you can add a bank account to Paypal and have your payments come out of that, but that still doesn't seem like an advantage.
Nope, you don't need a credit card to open a Paypal account. You don't even need a bank account but it's a lot less useful without any kind of funding source...
You can sign up with just a bank account and have the money taken directly out of the bank account for free (to you) and you can move any money you receive through PayPal to your bank account for free whenever you want as well.