GTK widgets are indeed offputting in general. I think it's partly that GTK is very easy to use, which means we've all used a lot of shitty GTK software due to t

GTK widgets are indeed offputting in general. I think it's partly that GTK is very easy to use, which means we've all used a lot of shitty GTK software due to the lower barrier to entry, and partly that at some point it got tangled up in GNOME's misguided efforts towards "convergence", which has left it looking big and clunky and in deliberate violation of 30+ years of UI tradition. Purely anecdotally, the best software almost invariably uses either Qt, WxWidgets, or something homegrown.