It is not so much a matter of points or not, but just having total circuit resistance for regulating the current: to a high enough value that will store adequate coil energy for each spark, and yet low enough so as to not burn things up (like the coil itself or the ECU). Flathead Fords had a problem of no ballast and they would burn up the coil if you left the ignition on but the engine was not running. The addition of an open air ballast resistor, with it's cold versus hot behavior, was a big step forward! (And ballast vacuum tubes had been invented prior to that for current regulation in electronics.)
