I think that might be because people who are used to writing typical object-oriented code somehow assume that an instantiation is required before you can do /an

I think that might be because people who are used to writing typical object-oriented code somehow assume that an instantiation is required before you can do /anything/. There is nothing wrong with a static call under a lot of conditions (not stateful, no override requirements etc). The same people also tend not to complain about C paradoxically.