I do agree the colours in the article were garish, but I'd say that is less because of the HSV/L usage and more the author's choices (including choosing to make

I do agree the colours in the article were garish, but I'd say that is less because of the HSV/L usage and more the author's choices (including choosing to make complementary colours in this way). The ability HSV gives to easily be able 'rotate' colour, (even though it's around a deformed blob nothing like a circle), and increase and decrease saturation makes it quite useful. I agree that human-picked (where the human very often will be selecting in an HSV-based picker themselves) probably yields a more pleasing result more often (tastes can vary a lot there however), but I think there are some quite solid possibilities with code using HSV too, without having to go the whole-hog with colour-science. Makes it heaps easier to just play with colour for one thing, and code can be just for fun/exploration sometimes I think that's a good thing.