I don't think anybody should use make to do that at first place. That's not what make was built for. Likewise Foreman should not be used as a build tool because it is not.
EDIT:
now i've seen the makefile in the example,I understand your comment and this is absolutely not where one wants to use make, that's just ridiculous.
Let me ask you this. Would you sit on a tree stump? How about kill a fly with a newspaper? Sometimes things are great for purposes for which they weren't originally intended.
Misuse of tools in software development is why we end up with broken software, useless solutions that solve stupid problems because the problem wasn't well understood as first place, and first and foremost unnecessary dependencies. That's why we end up with this makefile "hack".
Now explain what it's got to do with "conservatism". bad practices != innovation .
If you think this particular use of make is a "bad practice", then argue why it is! If there's no better reason than "This use isn't as intended!" then your opinion won't have much weight with people.