I think this is the manifestation of non-logical associations humans make. When I was a kid, a teacher told me learning was supposed to be hard and unpleasant,

I think this is the manifestation of non-logical associations humans make. When I was a kid, a teacher told me learning was supposed to be hard and unpleasant, and I believed her for a long time. Only when I started enjoying myself in spite of that did I see it was wrong, and I started doing well in school, and (more importantly) pursuing my own interests. There's a similar thing with security - people assume good security must be painful, so making it painful becomes a goal. Sometimes this is sincere, sometimes (TSA) intentional theater. But either way, the result is intentional hostility to the people who use the system. I'd bet money they have a one-sentence answer for why it does each of those things ("order is scrambled to prevent shoulder-surfing"), but have done zero testing to determine whether those theories are correct.