God it's true.
It's not even limited to ceiling fans. The blower motors in cars, which use a totally different design (like a tiny version of what's in your house's AC unit), often seem to need markings on the controls that say 'SUPER LOW - EXTRA LOW - LOW - FAN IS LOUDER THAN STEREO.'
I'm convinced that there's something in the fluid physics of fan engineering that means they only work at one speed and every other option might as well not be there. For fans to do jack shit at less than their max speed...they have to be designed with a lower max speed in mind. But in the case of ceiling fans, they also threw in 'hey, let's also give it just enough imbalance that it wants to destroy itself when on high.'