Grouping of project files into folders/namespaces

I've seen a few projects with 10 logical layers (that is, layers that don't need to be separate projects), each feature having a file in each of theese 10 folders/projects.

Why would somebody choose this layout, instead of putting a feature in the same folder (whenever it's possible; if there is a server and a client project, a feature will obviously have files in both) and make a folder for each feature ?

It's annoying to browse 10 folders, it would be much easier to browse just a few. Because when I work on a feature, many times I need to modify ma开发者_StackOverflowny of the feature's files.

---

I would ask why you are looking at the file system? I open everything in eclipse with control + shift + R... so I don't really care what folder a given file is in.

---

The only time I've ever seen a structure like this was due to serious over-architecture. The guy who created it decided that if design patterns were good, more design patterns were better. I've never seen a project with so many factories, strategies, wrappers, etc.