I agree with you, but I think that an occasional design shakeup hits people on a different level, subconsciously. A new look affects the feel of an application, which can actually affect how people view the substantial portions of an app.
What? What about the location of strategic military operations? Well "too bad" if a categorically transparent gov't inhibits the NSA's ability to process intelligence without alerting extremist groups. "Too bad" if a few thousand people die because you believe there should be no government secrets. Wait, I forgot that running a country is like playing Civilization...