Both methods give you a bit of information per iteration. The number of distinct floating point numbers between l,r is the same as the number of integers in the reinterpretation of l,r as integers.
Suppose l=1, r=3. So m=(1+3)/2=2. There are twice as many floating-point numbers between 1 and 2 as between 2 and 3. So if you refine from [1 3] to [1 2], you've only managed to prune 1/3 of your search space, not 1/2.
(Also: integer halving breaks when l and r have opposite signs.)
Perhaps this will make it clearer: suppose we have l=0 and r=1, and the number we're searching for is the smallest float, 2^-1074. If we use integer halving, we get one bit per iterations; floats have 64 bits, so we should require no more than 64 iterations. But if we use floating-point halving, obviously it will take 1074 iterations to get from [0 1] to [0 2^-1074].
(assuming starting l,r were appropriate)