It can, the models were created in Blender and Blender uses a different scale/rotation setting than what Unity uses. Blender now has an experimental feature that allows you to export with the correct scale and orientation that Unity uses, although at the time of creating these models it wasn't working properly.
Regardless, the empty game objects area ideal to use for scripting and components rather than trying to add anything directly to mesh objects. Makes it easier to modify or replace mesh objects later if needed without replacing the functionality.
Thank you for the quick reply, I was wondering about the second part. :)