I think we have the opposite problem too. People ascribe way too much intentional design to shit they don't understand even where no such intentional design exists.
Like 99% of the stuff you encounter on a daily basis is how it is because of some 3-way trade between aesthetically pleasing, the economic realities of producing that object and "how they've always been." It is not engineered for performance in the slightest other than some basic "yeah that should do" napkin analysis.
I think of this whenever I see coat hooks with dual hooks, the top one extending further. I've always assumed that they were designed when people regularly wore hats.
In my house, we use the bottom hooks for "outdoor base" and the longer top hooks for "outdoor top layer". It means you're never putting dry base layers on top of a wet waterproof layer.
I think it also provides value for people to hang purses.
But as other comments mention they found utility in it through layering. It may have been for hats once, but it’s certainly kept around because people found new uses.
> it’s certainly kept around because people found new uses.
Yasure that's the reason? I mean, sure, it's possible... But my money is on the "how they've always been" / "the original constraints made sense at the time but they’ve been forgotten and all we’re left with is the end product" mentioned above.
Happened to me more than once in a new project to come across some old code I didn't like, and when trying to understand it finding out that the old team doesn't understand it either and just does things out of inertia. Now what's one supposed to do here, except starting to refactor to get a feeling what dragons there are?
Like 99% of the stuff you encounter on a daily basis is how it is because of some 3-way trade between aesthetically pleasing, the economic realities of producing that object and "how they've always been." It is not engineered for performance in the slightest other than some basic "yeah that should do" napkin analysis.