Technically it's not the same, in case of IMAP they would need to literally put spam mails into your account. As opposed to having visual elements in the UI that pretend to be an email. Might not feel like a big difference but actively poisoning the users inbox is pretty bad.
Having a dedicated technical architect who hovers above the dev team handing architectural decisions down is also not always seen as an ideal construct in software development.
Deutsche Gründlichkeit at work. They not only infiltrate the party but take it over completely, up to the point where they do such a good job in pretending to be nazis that they become nazis themselves. 💯
Or maybe at that point you'll begin to realize that you might not need all of this stuff, and that happyness comes from other sources. But that is just my personal approach, by all means do whatever you like.
There is a german saying "bewachte Milch kocht nie" (watched milk never boils)