I've long suspected that there is a glut of not-terribly-good UX people who continually create pointless redesigns to justify their ongoing employment. I can't remember the last time (maybe never?) that I saw a redesign and thought, "Oh, yes, that's so much better, I'm excited for this!"
This is a good way to think of it. We've had clothes for ages but they get boring. We seek different things that look unique because we want to be excited. Our brains didn't like staring at text all day so we started wrapping the text with fun colors and shapes and it spiraled from there.