"I am an active duty military officer who will be transitioning into the reserves and starting a civilian career in December, so I am eligible for a VA home loan that will not require a down payment. My wife and I are planning on relocating to Raleigh, NC where we have both already begun job searches and expect to at least maintain (more likely exceed) our current combined annual income of around $80,000. We also have modest, non-retirement, savings (~$15,000) to help finance any expenses we incur with the move. I realize this is a somewhat exceptional case."
Your case is absolutely exceptional, so perhaps you should be a bit more tentative in your mocking while deciding to take out a 100% home loan? Frankly, I don't see the decision to buy a house with a 100% loan banking on having at least $80,000 in income a year as any better than buying a $600,000 house with 20% down while holding other debt. I have a cousin who took advantage of this "great program!" and now he and his soon-to-be ex wife are stuck with a house they can't get out from under in an area that has no work for her (they lived near his base).
The mortgage market is ridiculously complex (read: absurd) these days, and even many independently wealthy people won't qualify (I believe MMM has touched on this before when looking for investment properties). And it would be great to say that people should just not take out student loans, but we'd have a lot fewer professionals if that were the case. There are some lenders creating VA-like programs for doctors just because their student loan debt is so crushing that they couldn't really qualify for a purchase otherwise (and these are people making $100,000-$400,000 a year). It's easy to say that people should just rent, but when you're stuck with $3,000 loan payments (using doctors as example again), and rent in your area is two to three times more expensive than purchasing, how are you supposed to go about saving for a down payment or paying of loans at a fast enough rate? This topic is way more complicated than making fun of one example lets on.
TL;DR Student loan debt in contributing to a lot of problems in society, and I don't think it's really fair to mock people for wanting an education despite the cost.