The topography in East Texas is rather nice, imo. Similar to north Louisiana. I much prefer it to the the landscapes of Southeast Texas. There is a definite distinction if you're coming down 69, starting around Woodville. North of there looks like East Texas and south of there looks like Southeast Texas. East Texas is generally taken to be Tyler, Lufkin area, etc.
South of Houston and Austin and you're not really "east" in the state anymore. Beaumont is definitely the southeastern point of the state. At any rate, it's the name of the area. Our local news has "all your southeast Texas local news." The radio station weather-break jingles are things like "south-east Texaaaas weeeaa-theeeeeeerrrrr." My clinic routinely refers to Southeast Texas Gastroenterology Group or SETX Urology Associates, and 75% of every other business in the area is SETX this or SETX that. If this isn't southeast Texas, you can't tell them that.
Also, we're right next to SWLA, so it stands to reason we're SETX.
And SETX is kinda ppffffft.