The email signature phenomenon

Look Familiar?

Michael DeLuca  l President  l Meister Media Worldwide
Office Direct: (440) 555-5555  l  Mobile: (216) 555-5555
37733 Euclid Avenue  l  Willoughby, OH 44094

This email signature style has gone viral. Everywhere I look, folks are using this format to give their emails, both business and personal, a snappy, sophisticated look.

I wish I could take credit for creating it, but I can't. I first saw it in 2004 or 20055 in an email from Mark Willis, a friend who worked at the Cincinnati advertising/marketing/pr firm Northlich. I immediately appropriated it and have been using it since. If I'm not the creater, maybe the propogator, though. Makes me wonder: did Northlich create it or appropriate it, too?
 
It's appeal must be universal, because wherever I work, people who were using another format or no format at all in their email switch to this format or slight variations thereof. Likewize as I meet new folks and develop email relationships, I often find their subsequent return emails suddenly sporting the new signature style. 
 
I've seen entire corporations like it so much they have mandated their employees adopt it.
 
Don't get me wrong. I like it. I just wonder what is so special about it that is seems to be sweeping the emailing world. I've not seen another signature style that has been copied like this one, and wonder if we might try to come up with one and watch it spread!
 
Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?