It's an interesting conjecture and probably has some merit, but looking at the examples in the article, I, as someone who is not an architect (but do like nice

It's an interesting conjecture and probably has some merit, but looking at the examples in the article, I, as someone who is not an architect (but do like nice looking things) find that the McMansion examples are generally pretty ugly things that bother me for some reason I can't define (though it is thoroughly defined in the article of course). I've seen houses designed by architects before, both internally and externally, and usually they exude a sense of balance and peace that is not present in the average house. I offer an alternative conjecture: most people have poor taste. The majority taste is therefore generally condemned by people who actually know what they're talking about. It seems to me this alternative conjecture is borne out in things like music (pop music, with a few exceptions, is generally simplistic and crass compared to many more refined sub-genre), literature (again with rare exceptions, books that "everyone likes" are generally awful - see 50 shades, Bourne, etc), though interestingly not movies (at least my impression is that there are a lot of very popular movies which are also quite good).