I'm from Texas, and I don't even know what "properly-made sweet tea" is. I can't stand junk in my tea.
As noted before- Teaxs is its own littel world and the normal rules of society don't apply there

Properly made sweet tea involves putting the sugar in while the tea is still hot. The sugar dissolves better and the sweetness is dsitributedly uniformly thoughout the tea. Just throwing a packet of sweetener in a galss of unsweetened tea winds up with a glob of sugar at the bottom of a glass of unsweetened tea.
It's just a type of comfort food for those of us that grew up with sweet tea. Like pizza for NYers or fish tacos for SoCalers.