[character]

Seems to me like the layout is basically as minimal as possible, so that would lend itself to looking similar to others that don't have the normal bells and whistles.

I think the point is that this is a site where you can just click the link and start typing. Optimized for loading fast and getting your idea written down as quickly as possible. You don't have to create a user if you don't want to, and you can save as a temp user. Draftin.com (and most other notes sites) take too long to set up for this use case.