It wasn't a cynical response
The information you provided has been written in hundreds of BJ books. Without further information on the books contents or possibly appearance, it is impossible to determine the author/title.
There are several valid reasons for standing with a 15 or 16 v 10, including card counting play indexes, composition dependant basic strategy, counters basic strategy, cover plays, possible tournament end play strategy, taking advantage of a special promotion of some sort, etc. Unfortunately, there are also numerous completely incorrect reasons for making this specific suggestion (see the recent writings of Jerry Patterson, among others).
Since you know this specific piece of advice was contained in the book, it would really help to narrow down the possible choices if you could also remember the reason that the author gave for his advice.