You are my alt! I did the exact same thing! Well, I didn't build it, but my friend did. But we couldn't use it.
Yeah they're pretty dangerous.
The electric fields produced by mine temporarily screwed up so many devices.
I'd imagine for 2 reasons:
1 you want new members to introduce themselves so putting a redirect up top directs them to the proper place to do so
2 a singular intro thread just for introductions could reduce multiple intro threads, or he forgot to make it a sub-forum of off topic community
1, but I don't like how the redirect works.