This is the classic problem of people being allowed or enabled to do things they are not properly educated about - not a criticism, but an observation. This ca

This is the classic problem of people being allowed or enabled to do things they are not properly educated about - not a criticism, but an observation. This can be applied to anything: child rearing, writing, presenting, singing, dancing, pet-owning, coding, UI developing, ..., ..., ... Without a formal educational foundation, people just do what they see. And the more people do without education, the more the overall result will stray from (perhaps) what is best. In school we learned formal language grammar, and only if we were experienced and of some high profile (or having no audience) were we allowed to exercise "creative license" to break the rules. It might kill some good creativity, but it would also kill bad/wrong creativity in user interfaces if there were fairly strict rules to follow. Some of the coolest UIs also happen to be terrible to actually use. Same goes for books written with inconsistent typography, alignment, etc.