It's been a while since I've followed CHI, but didn't it used to be a slightly more technical conference? The second paper in particular ("It Didn’t Feel Right but I Needed a Job so Desperately’: Understanding People’s Emotions and Help Needs During Scams") seems like something that might be more appropriate for a sociology or applied psych journal.

Has it become more of a social-sciences adjacent tech research conference these days? (I'm not being critical, just curious.)

CHI has been a pretty big tent (and it's gotten to be a big conference) from the beginning and has always had a strong social/psych contingent. I believe the author is from such a background, so "papers I wish I wrote" is going to be skewed towards those kinds of contributions.

But there have been and still are plenty of what I would technical papers; just skimming the program there were sessions on pose/gesture tracking, haptics, VR, and of course zillions of AI things.