Can anyone shed some light on why someone would go out of their way to conduct an attack like this? Is DoSing production web applications just a hobby for black hat jackasses with nothing better to do?
There's not much you can achieve for your own gains with a DDoS. I've heard of rare cases of extortion or underhanded business practices to hurt competitors.
I guess humans are closer to monkeys than we like to believe and still like throwing poop at each other.
Well, no. If you _only_ liked sparks and glass shards flying all around - you'd buy yourself a car and destroyed it yourself.
Destroying the car of a neighbour implies something going between you and the neighbour.