With a resistive load, you have to pull more current to
get to saturation than to stay linear - simple Ohm's law.
As you enter saturation your hFE drops. Some of this,
because base terminal current begins to be "stolen" by
the B-C junction and this does not contribute to base-
emitter current anymore, and goes out the collector in
the wrong direction.
The benefit of saturation is the conductivity modulation
of the collector, when you forward bias the B-C junction
you inject minority carriers to the collector and drive the
resistance down in the lightly doped region that dominates
Rc. Without this the device would make a dismal power
switch. But what you do to make a good power switch
(ohmically) often fights against good switching (storage)
times - where do you want your lifetime@current, really?