I can't help but think that much of the intent behind "cargo-culting" is simply people building up their resumes for future career development.
If you want to work in a sexy new technology, but you need to develop experience in that new stuff to be marketable it is totally understandable to try to build up skills by forcing the implementation of over-sized solutions.
In other words, many employers aren't willing to take on folks if they don't have the requisite experience on some new stack and that compels folks to gain that experience anyway they can, including "cargo-culting" stuff that isn't necessary just for the experience gain.
That hasn't been my experience, from the people I've seen. It's mostly just excited engineers wanting to play with a new thing (which is great) but doing that in the most available place, their job (which is bad).
The advice I give them is "do whatever you want in your house (or your side project), but critically evaluate your business needs and only use what makes sense for your business".
Personally, I have a very low-traffic guinea pig side-project that I like working on, and I just try every new thing there.
The people I know aren't doing it in a conscious way to further their career, they just like playing with new things. The career advancement is incidental.
Generally when I hear somebody dismiss a suggestion because they think its real purpose is career progression. I am immediately suspicious of the accuser.
I've worked with people who technology choices based on how good it would look on their CV and people who have refused to work in particular areas because the technology wasn't sexy enough for them.
If you want to work in a sexy new technology, but you need to develop experience in that new stuff to be marketable it is totally understandable to try to build up skills by forcing the implementation of over-sized solutions.
In other words, many employers aren't willing to take on folks if they don't have the requisite experience on some new stack and that compels folks to gain that experience anyway they can, including "cargo-culting" stuff that isn't necessary just for the experience gain.