I don't know. I'm reading The E-myth Revisited at the moment, and it claims that salespeople sell 10-15% more when they're dressed in blue than when they're dr

I don't know. I'm reading The E-myth Revisited at the moment, and it claims that salespeople sell 10-15% more when they're dressed in blue than when they're dressed in brown. The OP seems to assume that most purchasing decisions are based on rational assessments of experience with the products under consideration, but results like the blue/brown experiment suggest that there is a lot more going on, and seemingly irrational factors can have a huge impact on customer decisions. If that's the case, the "froofy" aspects of design rejected by the OP can have a significant business impact and should not be ignored. But it does make sense to subject those aspects to rigorous testing rather than just spend weeks talking about them, as described in the OP.