I can understand the reason for an HOA but the problem is they almost always end up with busy bodies on a power trip who have no experience running them.

We don't have one here but a bunch of those people started a community association without consent of anyone else but luckily it has no power. So far the president has used it for her own purposes- to lobby the city for over 5 years against developers and other petty things that affect her own property and lately she's written petition letters on behalf of the association on questionable subjects without the consent or even knowledge of other members.