Reasons for developing your pieces?

Consider the following position, white to move.

What should be white's next move - and why?

I'd be tempted to play Bc4 because:

(i) It attacks the f7 square

(ii) It gets "beyond my own pawns" and attacks down open files into more squares of enemy territory then any other move.

But my database suggests Be3 as the optimal move. Why is that? It doesn't attack an important square, and it's not instantly attacking the queenside. Ok it's defending the pawn and is itself defended by a pawn while *potentially* attacking almost as many squares in enemy territory.

So is the general principle - "if you can defend something while being defended yourself, and still increase the attacking potential, then do that?"

But then why not Bd3? This seems as effective as Be3, but also takes you a step towards K side castling. This is played by 1 player for the 500 who play Be3 in the database.

And what about Bb5, something I'd be likely to play in a kind of pseudo-Spanish fashion. Only one player in the databse played that,... and lost...