This is kind of an aside, but hover is a perfectly valid UI mechanism, and I intensely dislike the trend of kneecapping the UI just to make it work on a touch screen.
Some things just don't work well if you don't have a mouse. That doesn't mean we should throw them away. It just means that sometimes you need a mouse for real work. There's nothing wrong with that.
To each their own, I absolutely despise anything popping up, ever.
Stuff appearing and disappearing as I move my mouse around angers me, and I get even more annoyed when things pop up if I put my mouse somewhere to park it.
A full blown conniption fit happens if I park my mouse, start to read something, and a popup thing gets in the way. The neighbours know when that happens.
Some things just don't work well if you don't have a mouse. That doesn't mean we should throw them away. It just means that sometimes you need a mouse for real work. There's nothing wrong with that.