However, if you were starting with some Short-Weierstrass EC code in your library, then you might be inclined to skip all the scalar multiplication specific stuff in the Ed25519 paper, just take some (incomplete) Edwards formulas, take some general scalar multiplication algo (or even reuse the one you have for Short-Weierstrass, like libgcrypt) and end up with a vulnerable EdDSA (if your ECDSA was).
The short-circuiting in the addition formulas is necessary if incomplete formulas are used. Either that is done, or the scalar multiplication algorithm has to explicitly find out the bit-length and start so that the point at infinity is not input into them ever.