why does the interface on so many of the doge pools look exactly the same?
Not just the DOGE pools, a lot of scrypt pools look the same. They use the same publicly available code.
If this is a scam, and it certainly appears to be, I'd say there's more than one person involved. Be very wary where you put your hashrate, be ware of new posters, and new pools. And certainly be ware of new coins.
M