> Why not add at least a little recognisability to the official URL?

Because it doesn't help at all. The first four letters of an onion URL are unimportant because they can be chosen with little effort, as you describe.

Following random links and following random links that start with "zlib" is the same thing.

It's obviously not a security benefit, it's just nice to have a little branding so you have some idea what the link you're clicking is pretending to be

As you said, it's effectively the same thing, so why not do the tiniest amount of effort and generate some slightly indicative address?

Because then someone will duplicate the UI and generate a new vanity address and start to do bad stuff under their good name.

How is that any different from the random character address? I can generate a random address and pretend to be another website and you won't know the difference because all you'll remember about the address is "a while bunch if random letters".

Yea, I guess a stupid computer user would probably fall for it either way, so I admit defeat on this front.

My argument was going to be along the lines of: "a stupid computer user who knows the real address starts with zlib would be tricked easier by another zlib address than if the real site were random, where they might check more thouroughly that they were on the right site..." before being fooled, anyways, probably.