Developers seriously need to work to incorporate designers in OSS more. Even just basic UX would go a long way for many projects. Maybe some sort of better issue templates, or perhaps a more custom solution is necessary?
Good designers can make a project succeed. We need more in OSS.
I personally enjoy the process of taking a design and bringing it to life in the real codebase. I find it somewhat meditative and a good task to work on when you brain is a little overloaded.