Nasalhair; It is about expecting a simple feature to work, that has worked on cell phones since the inception of phones...
That's not exactly accurate. I've owned cell phones since the inception of the devices including the Motorola brick. Guess what, it didn't have an alarm clock - it barely worked as a phone! Since that time, I've owned numerous cell phones and only about half of them had alarms that would sound when the phone was off.
And today with smartphones, they're not so simple. A lot of smartphones need to have the operating system running, just like a computer, in order for it to process the software program which is the alarm clock. If the smartphone is not powered up, it can't run the alarm app and therefore can not sound the alarm.
And a prime example is the iPhone, the most successful phone on the planet. It does NOT sound the alarm if the phone is off, and if the most successful phone doesn't do it, then you can't claim it's a universal and normal feature that all phones have.
I find it very hard to understand that HTC expects you to have the phone turned on at all times, considering the energy consumption (and yes, I understand fly-mode takes up less power).
HTC isn't the only company that makes phones this way. C'mon, it's a smartphone, not just a simple cell phone and they're designed to be on and running 24/7. I leave my phone on all the time because I like to get up in the morning and check my mail, text alerts from various sources, weather, etc. I don't have to wait for it to boot, retrieve data and then show me 5mins later - it's already on and has all the info ready and waiting for me. It's a smartphone so I want it to do things for me while I'm sleeping.
As for energy consumption, when I used it for geocaching which uses a lot of battery, my phone needed charging 1 or 2 times a day. But now that I'm using a handheld GPS, my phone is back to being a smartphone and it will often last 2 days before requring another charge. I consider this normal.
This is simply a matter of expecting a "normal" feature that is no longer there...
Your definition of "normal" is not consistent with all phones, so it's not exactly a normal feature. Perhaps you've been lucky in getting phones that have that feature - how many phones have you actually owned? But it most certainly is NOT a universal feature.
I will continue to switch off my phone at night, thank you very much. And I have invested in an old-school alarm clock that will look handsome next to my state of the art "smart" phone.
If that's what works for you, that's great.
But in regards to life expectancy of electronic devices, your experience is not valid. Micro-electronics are designed to be on all the time. What actually kills most micro-electronics, is the heating/cooling cycles as the component expand/contract cycle causes physical damage to the component. That's why it's better to leave a computer running all the time than turning it on/off every day.
It's a smartphone...let it do its thing and leave it on. I guarantee the device will NOT last any longer if you turn if off every night. Turn it on, leave it on, and use it.