I think a lot has been lost by an overfocus on chasing a unified look and feel for User interfaces. Standardising the user interface allows applications that h

I think a lot has been lost by an overfocus on chasing a unified look and feel for User interfaces. Standardising the user interface allows applications that have no design to share a common appearance. Making a custom user interface requires designing something. It can result in monstrosities if the designer lacks skill, or experiments with new ideas that don't work out. The antidote to that is dogfooding. Using the interface you made is the next incentive to make it good. The demo scene philosophy of building precisely what you want to serve a function was clearly one of the influences on winamp, which was beloved by many. I guess a lot of this went away with the lack of software choice. If you didn't like winamp you didn't have to use it. When a program is marketed as the only solution to a problem and they want everyone to use the same program (often by locking people in). If the software aims to be to everyone's taste it is to no-one's taste. It just becomes bland.