Or how about popping a dialog to inform me that cellular data is disabled for $app every time I open it while not connected to wifi, even though $app most certainly does not require access to data in order to work.

I'm of the "avoid popups at all cost" school of UI design. As soon as you let developers have modal UI that isn't meant to accomplish a specific, user-initiated task, they will immediately start using that power to be obnoxious.