Feel like its the same reason why a ton of new people rush into buying an intake for MK7s when there's minimal gains from it, no? I'm new-ish into the car scene but it feels other platforms people rush for intakes, while for us its mostly just for turbo noise.
The intake thing is usually because people who know nothing about cars but want to mod know that they can put an intake on. It's partly urban legend partly good marketing from K&N.
There are measurable and real gains from the intake when tuned, but stock its just for noise.