I agree, mostly. I grew up in a house that had them (in the 70s), and always thought they were dumb -- even though they were on almost every house in that area. Looking on google maps, I see the current owners have recently removed some of them, and it looks really weird.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.7722788,-77.219379,3a,75y,26...

I think you need some kind of trim on windows, but agree that obviously fake shutters are kind of dumb.