You went of on some tangent about the 'old days of passionate software developers' which seems like something that just happened to be on your mind, not something with any connection here.
When you say 'we' should splurge you really mean someone else.
Also this wasn't a splurge, this probably took less time to make than doing it in CG and people who can do the photography probably don't know how to do it in CG in the first place.
I'm answering why we should (within reason) splurge on these kinds of fun, seemingly pointless side tracks.