I completely agree with your first point, 'You've buried the lede' and this is a mistake I see on a daily basis. Great design should never say "look at me" it

I completely agree with your first point, 'You've buried the lede' and this is a mistake I see on a daily basis. Great design should never say "look at me" it should always say "look at this". The first steps to achieving this and therefore avoiding the mistakes you mention are to cohesively join your UX and UI teams or designers into one fluid process. One will never work well, without the other. What are you saying and how are you saying it is the basis for ensuring your core company message is translated effectively over any medium. If in doubt always ask yourself, 'would my mum get it', she might not be the target audience but your design should be that simple to understand and decipher. No-one wants to have to go to an about us page, or scroll endlessly down a page to 'get it', otherwise why do we bother having headlines on newspaper articles? Simplicity is difficult, but this is the challenge all great designers should embrace.