Nor do I have any particular affiliation or affinity. It just sounds like poor UX/UI.

I guess the whole "hover over it if you're confused" thing is pretty established by now, so I'd say your original assessment is probably the correct one. I just want us (the industry) to get better at this stuff! :)

Fair enough; that's totally reasonable, and I agree with you. I guess I just had an objection to the post I originally replied to which (seemingly) had the attitude of it being impossible to tell what the button did. The UX could certainly be better, but it's not bad.

Yes, but it is not intuitively obvious for the ordinary user who would account for the majority of page views and potential advertising revenue.