Most chocolate things, like random chocolate cookies or commercial cake etc, breakfast cereal, irritate the back of my throat in a mild way. Couple that with the foreground taste not being anything special, and it's just enough to make the whole experience just the wrong side of neutral. Not terrible just not good either.

All stuff that's made in factories and needs to have shelf life, so I can only imagine it's any number of cost saving substitutions and preservatives and who knows what all for other reasons like preserving texture etc.