Two kids down, I've found I still heavily dislike looking at those weird photos everyone seems to love to take, where everyone is just posed there side by side like in a school picture with a forced smile. All they end up reminding me is how mildly annoying taking said picture was.

However, I love looking back at those "in action" pictures. The ones where people are laughing, talking with each other, looking at stuff, playing games, going places, etc. The ones where people are acting naturally, sometimes even unaware they're being posed. Those definitely bring back the memories. You see the emotion, the fun people are having. You get to see personalities, looks, mannerisms.

That's a pretty good point. A lot of people don't realise that even casual photography can serve a lot of roles, and a lot of "boring" photos can still be very useful. You might not even realise how useful the photos can be later. I've found some old photos of mine that don't really look like much at first glance, but there might be some detail in them that gives context for the rest of the image set.

For example, a lot of people take photos of their food. Some might say "well, that's a clearly pointless habit", but think about it this way - today, it can serve a journaling purpose (so what did we eat last week? stick these things in a food journal so you can get a better idea of your calorie intake?) and maybe later it can serve as historical evidence (okay, so what did we all eat 10 years ago? Remember when McD did this goofy campaign? etc etc)

Maybe you're right, I might appreciate it 30/40years down the road but definitely not 10 years. I have photos from 10 years back but I never look at them. They only stay because storage is cheap.