There were so many of those cheap little LCD clock modules with the two little buttons to set the time. They were crammed into absolutely everything. It was like we were thinking, we desperately want the future to be here, but we don't have the technology yet, so these will do.
This reminds me of a comment by Douglas Adams in which he pointed out the absurdity of regular clocks/watches going out of fashion at about the same time as pie charts became insanely popular (since a traditional watch works more or less exactly like a pie chart).
While this is just a funny thing to notice, it really shows that both technical product design and fashion often depend more on a "look what we can do now!" factor than actual practicality.
Luckily, there are more and more product designers who recognize that minimalism is often the better principle to base their work on.
