You are right that four flat sides are the intended appearance, but underneath, the star shape is for stability. A closer analogy would be taking the paint off a car and bragging about how sturdy the steel is.
Yep, happens all the time. We love to read stories about how a community or some benefactor came to the rescue, when we should be asking why, as a society, we don't prioritize keeping all of our people out of such dire circumstances.
It never ends. My younger daughter called to ask me why her pumpkin pie wasn't setting up correctly. After a few questions, it came out that she got her recipe from TikTok. Oh dear. Why didn't you use the recipe on the pumpkin can? She didn't even know there was a recipe on the can. She's too online to use a cookbook, so I need to make her a list of reputable cooking websites.
That's not the only Thanksgiving dish we doubled because we had different traditions. It was a mountain of food, but with four teenagers, it didn't last all that long.