There is going to be design "homogeny" no matter what, it will be whatever the standard style of your browser is or renderer is. Right now, that standard is pre

There is going to be design "homogeny" no matter what, it will be whatever the standard style of your browser is or renderer is. Right now, that standard is pretty ugly, and its pretty hard to go from that to something that looks decent. There's no reason someone writing a scientific application, or someone who can't afford a good designer, or doesn't understand the importance of design, should have no other option than something that looks pretty poor. The goal of a good standard is to allow applications to look really good out of the gate, which doesn't prevent you from then customizing it. Look at Mac OS X for desktop and iPhone. These are the OSes with the most focus on a interface guidelines, but the also have the most unique looking apps as well.