[gregjor]

Sometimes you can't win. I worked on a site that had what I call a punitive UI -- buttons and links that would throw up a modal alert telling users they shouldn't have clicked on that. When I started changing the UI so users didn't see controls/links they shouldn't click on, users complained that "the web page changed," as if they had memorized exact pixel locations and I caused their confusion. Pigeons pecking at the green dot.

Numerous studies tell us that people don't read web pages, or don't read much of the text on the page. A big "click here" helps in that case, a call to action as another commenter wrote. As long as the page or email just has one call to action.