Or maybe they just love the job and think that the legal dept is a dick but that does not overshadow their love of the work being done at this company.
What is shocking to me is that if I were working in say the automobile industry and I make a highly customized bike, these kind of clause would mean that my employer owns all of that.
Some may argue since I have paid for the components and not the company that would save me, but to be fair the programmer paid for his/her laptop/desktop, servers (if any), maybe even some programming tools. Does having most of the stuff to make a side project come for free make me eligible for giving up my IP to my employer? This is just insane.