At a simple level, the use of particles feels somewhat programming-ish. As one's knowledge expands, the exceptions and idiosyncrasies end up destroying that picture, but I get where it comes from.

I would assume it is similar to introducing a programmer to sentence diagramming in English. You start to see patterns and those patterns start feeling like a more formal system. Yet it always ends up crashing down and being too illogical to keep building upon.

One aspect that is likely at play is that learning a new language tends to be more formalized than one's understanding of their native language (outside of a sentence diagramming class or similar). When you learn a specific piece of grammar in a new language, you want to understand it formally. That means finding equivalent examples in a native language if they exist, or otherwise formally explaining the distinction between what grammar exists in a native language and the new grammar structure. I think this sort of pattern goes away when one approached fluency (unless they specialize in studying grammar itself in both their native and new language). The eventual goal is for grammar in the new language to feel as natural and yet illogical as grammar in the native language.