Clever or novel often gets precedence in many of these UI collection blogs. It's easy to get caught up in busy-work with design, possibly more so than with programming.

That's why I like UI changes that come with a/b test results. Although sometimes it's hard to measure the right metrics with this stuff, especially when it's entirely qualitative or highly abstract like emotional gratification.

It's teaching you how it's a good idea to have a 404 page which links to an article explaining more.