Some of it makes sense when the reasons were explained (e.g. "we figured this would make it easier for [business unit] to do [thing] which turned out not to be something [business unit] actually has interest in doing").
Other examples are purely of this sort (e.g. "we'll be glad we have this in place when we finally hit [x] users or enter [market]").
Design wise, I know it when I see it but other people may see different things.
I agree completely on pushing off features that are not core because it is better to learn in production than to daydream in meetings. I would say most phase-2 features never get implemented.