Hidden Sidebars Are The New 'Pull-to-Refresh'

Lately, I've noticed a trend in iPhone app UIs. Many of them are beginning to implement a hidden left-hand sidebar, all of which are accessed by tapping a button with 3 lines on the top left corner. Like so:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the Facebook app was the first to do this. Now look at all the other apps that are doing it too:

Path:

Sparrow:

Glassboard:

and I'm sure the list goes on.

Believe me, I understand why a developer would choose to do this, because it's an easy way to give the user access to other settings without cluttering the main portion of the app.

But it's not very original.

This feels like the hugely popular 'pull-to-refresh' feature that has made its way to so many apps out there, sometimes being shoehorned into places where it doesn't actually make very much sense. Not every good idea is one-size-fits-all, and I would love to see more creativity and innovation in the app community. I'm especially disappointed with Path on this one, since the rest of their app is quite lovely and innovative.