Forum announcements should be checked by everyone - all rule changes and important things regarding the forum and its status get posted there. If we put everything into general, it would just push the current topics there down further, and the announcements would also get lost - hence why they are put where they are.
I largely posted so that (1) the rule would be known, and (2) also so that people would realize that I changed the names of their posts, so that they could still find them.
PezCat