Comment by godshatter

I guess I don't see this as much of a negative question as others seems to. I'm one of those people that likes to work on more obscure solutions to things just because they interest me. Might or might not end up with a better solution than the common method, but I gain insight that I can maybe leverage on some other problem. So the question "why didn't you just..." usually ends up with me stating why I thought that solution was interesting and what I've learned by avoiding the obvious solution. Of course, sometimes I simply didn't think of the obvious solution, but you can't put yourself out there without a little risk.

I don't tend to assume ill intent for questions like that. Someone saw the problem, and proposed an obvious solution. That's just being helpful, even if they start off thinking you're an idiot.