Although Gnome Shell is very minimalistic by default, in order to offer the user the ability to form it the way he/she likes, it does include some things that may not be useful for everyone.
One of the most popular examples is the remove accessibility extension that many people use to get rid of the accessibility icon on the top panel.
Two more extensions of the same kind were released today, allowing users to remove small things that make a big usability difference. The first one is called “No IM Status” and it removes the IM Status controls from the user menu. Useful if you are using an IM client which doesn’t integrate into Gnome Shell, or if you use no IM at all.
This also removes the bubble status symbolic icon on the left of your name
The other one is called “Hide App Categories” and I suppose that you can easily imagine what it does. People went crazy when pagination on Gnome Shell was to replace categories, but I suppose that there are some users out there that don’t even need pagination dots on the right. Just typing the names, or scrolling the “all” category must be enough for them…
Yes, removing things with the use of extensions is not a bad, stupid or unnatural thing. Extensions are not only about adding features, or option menus, but also about extending the experience that people get from Gnome Shell and that may include the removal of unneeded things.