Edntime beliefs occur because there's always a group of people willing to listen to them. Look at your run of the mill JW or SDA convert. Their demographics are usually this: Poor, poorly educated, a person needing a community, and a person that's usually not internet savvy.
And converts lead to a large percentage of the growth in those churches (Even though us skeptics have done a great deal of damage to that conversion process, hehehe).
Those converts are usually destitute and poorly educated, so life for them isn't actually a bowl of cherries. This is their chance to escape this thing called life and go to heaven (or earth) Being poorly educated, they wouldn't know about the tactics of endtime cults, so hence, they're more likley to join these things.
I've noticed that in JW chat rooms, you can tell who the JW apologists are by their poor spelling. And most elders, of course, are directing the congreation one night and are serving their same fellow witnesses cheese and crackers the next night at Wal-Mart.