Because that is just one use of the Mode button. Pressing it changes what the port LEDs indicate, so cycling it lets you see status, speed, duplex, PoE status, etc. without having to connect to it. That isn’t easy without a raised button. Clear could have been separated as a pinhole and that would have been fine, but this stupidly placed button would still have been useless this way anyway.
Never had a console growing up. Played Atari at a friend’s place, but most of us had C64 as our main, and we pirated the shit out of everything we could get our hands on. By the time NES was everywhere, the most fun stuff for me was in BBS door games. Trade Wars 2002, Modern Warfare (yes this is what I think of when I hear the full name, though MW is always Mechwarrior to me lol), Pimp Wars, and Max Headroom were some of the popular ones in my neck of the woods.