Cell phone shut down songs

Upyernoz asks a very good question:

why do cell phones play a little shutdown tune when you turn them off? who came up with that idea? if i am shutting off my phone it's because i don't want it to make any noise. is it just trying to taunt me?

yeah, i realize you can disable the shutdown song. but it seems like most phones default to having it on. why would anyone think that's a good idea?

Fortunately, my phone, a Nokia something-or-other from Cingular--oops I mean AT&T (but my phone still says "Cingular Mall" in the lower right-hand corner)--does not do this. But my previous phone did. I agree that a shut down song is very bad design. The only benefit I can imagine is that it may serve as an alert if your phone is shutting down and you don't want it to, perhaps because the button got pressed by something else in your bag. But that's bad design, too.