As with developers doing resume-driven development, designers need to build a strong portfolio to land their next gig. So aesthetics comes into building their

As with developers doing resume-driven development, designers need to build a strong portfolio to land their next gig. So aesthetics comes into building their own distinctive "brand" (as opposed to the brand of the client/company they are currently working for). That's not to say they won't justify their design in terms of what the client needs, it just pushes them away from using "boring" aesthetics - for example, pushing for a trendy-looking design for a backend admin dashboard that would have been just as usable (and cheaper) to build with a bog-standard Bootstrap theme. This isn't to blame designers, that's just the economic reality of the business.