Been Watching HGTV, and wonder why ...

[pushylady]

We have a handtowel on both our fridge door and oven door!

I find it's a convenient place and sturdy enough for when you grab the towel.
Tea towels (for drying dishes) are kept on a wall mounted towel rail near our oven.

 

[luvmyparker]

My mom keeps her dish towel and a hand towel on her stove handle. I guess there is really no other place to hang towels that looks decent. She's done that for yeeeaaaaarrrs.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Adding to what I said the other day... At our old house we kept them on the refrigerator just because of the way the stove handle was. Now we have a side by side one and it would just get in the way. But growing up we always had one there.

I would venture to say that the reason designers put them there is that it's nice to break up all the hard surfaces of a kitchen with the soft fabric. And there are only so many places to do that in a kitchen.