I think LG purposely chose the 16MP over 12MP because of their primary focus on video creation on the V series... the pan to zoom features allow users to zoom into an object smoothly. Higher resolution megapixels matter when a user is zooming into a subject from far away and a 16MP helps greatly with that. But the 16MP has its disadvantages too like slower focus speed and smaller sensor. Me personally, I dislike the 12MP no matter how good the photos look.. because I sometimes crop and zoom and there's a loss of detail and sharpness with a 12MP.
A great example of when one would use cropping is when they crop someone's head from a group photo. Another example is when LG upgraded their 8MP wide angle camera to 13MP and it made a huge difference.. it really does and people notice.