You can't please everyone, so there's no sense in half-assing a stronghold to make sure there's no content in it, since that will please nobody. I don't particularly care for strongholds in general either, but I really don't see what's inherently wrong with them that people completely loathe them. The only thing that really makes a stronghold is the sense that you at least partly own or are in charge of a location. I mean, not sure if there's really a big difference between a player home and a stronghold, though the latter usually implies other people than the player live there too, and somewhat that it's a 'defensive location.'