Comment by makeitdouble

This is of course a great point.

I have the feeling we're not that far apart on principle, as I see the starting from a blank state as a nice default that will often lead to nice things.

That's kinda why I enjoy plain non-descript cards even if people then write platitudes on them. It's still their own platitudes that resonate with them. Also people that can dig deeper tend to feel the pressure to so anyway in my experience, and people who stay very terse often couldn't really go beyond.

The most interesting instance of this is remote family that are only easily accessible by message, and we see some sending walls of greetings, while others will write a full email with a photo and 10 words top, their name included.