Meaningless in the sense (I was probably far too throwaway and should have added context or explanation) that all religions (and most of our institutions) have layers of human added baggage, rules for rule's sake, and things that are done because that's how they are done. Things that might have made some sense when instituted, or in the context of first century Middle East, or a Medieval religious-focused society but look increasingly anachronistic in a modern, developed world. Clearly they couldn't predict the swathe of inventions and human change any more than the US founders could predict the later interpretations and re-interpretations of their relatively simple words.

As they become no longer of their time, it becomes the rule that is significant and the heritage, and becomes the heritage rather than the reason it might have been instituted way back when. Yet just about every society develops habits and rituals. Occasionally they turn out to be counter-productive to the adherents in a modern world. Now you certainly raise a good point about the experience of following -- the ritual itself can take on importance, and the community benefits are well known. Decline of community appears to be implicated in no end of modern problems, and whether secular or religious, anything that preserves it is to be lauded.

I'm surprised at the discussion spun up from the oven feature -- seems like some manufacturers may interpret the feature differently to others. Which is correct, and which right for Judaism, I'm unqualified to say. A sabbath mode elevator is, to my mind, a much more obvious and clean workaround that seems to preserve the spirit of the underlying idea.