Where we've got it wrong is that only thing we have in common is a shared interest in how the market perceives us, and since markets are batshit crazy, we end up doing crazy things like maintaining a lawn in a drought just for the aesthetics of it. If there were actually something we had in common, like I dunno a lathe or something, there would be something with practical considerations around which to anchor HOA policy.

(bias note: I don't live in an HOA, but my friends seem to hate it an I'm offended by the lack of character/sense in the HOA-governed neighborhoods that surround mine.)

Afaik, most of them are vestigial instruments left over from master planned development financing, that gave the developers X years of voting control in order to recoup some part of their investment.