The Rare stuff was all they had. Before Rare, there was no DK "franchise". It was more or less lumped in with Mario. Hell, Miyamoto deliberately let Rare use DK because the character had no backstory. Therefore, all the things me and Sqrt are complaining about = the DK franchise itself.
Try to imagine a Mario game in the same vein as JB, just try it. (SML1 and 2 at least had Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Pipes and other variants thereof).