Why do programmers have to make hover-over captions on their web pages so that they block what you're viewing?

This is my biggest beef. If you're going to put hover-over captions on your website, please don't give them an agonizingly long hang-time, and don't make them block (1.) videos, (2.) text, or worst of all (3.) the drop-down menu command I'm trying to click on. Why are some programmers such idiots about this? Microsoft, for instance, is incredibly irritating about non-intuitive "helpful" little hover-overs. Anyone else hate this? How should people avoid this? Is there a way to universally turn them off on your browser?