Do people actually like all of the overdesigned clutter to the point where it makes them not want to switch sites?
To me, the stripped down clarity on Lemmy is a feature. I remember back in the day when people flocked to Facebook from MySpace, in large part because they were sick of eye gouging customized pages and just wanted a simple, consistent interface. The content, not the buttons to click on it are the draw right?
They are kinda right though. An appealing design is important for many people. (Except for some reason people involved in opensource and linux stuff… fite me!)
Also a nicer design doesn’t mean that it will be cluttered. You’re just creating a strawman there.