I am surprised to read how modern architecture (or font design) disregard optical balance, when this is so instrumental to looking good: as in, I am not seeing it, but maybe I am looking through rose-coloured glasses.

I don't think anyone would call me artistic, even if I dabbled in typography (both of the book design and font design variety), furniture and interior architecture (some exterior too): but I keep needing to draw things starting with pure geometric shapes and precise symmetry and then move them around to make it appealing even to me.

For instance, other than the obvious curvature in pillars in Parthenon, the spacing between them is even more important: notice how outward pillars have the next one closer to avoid the vast emptiness outside unbalance them.

The same holds true for fonts, both kerning and character design, but another thing not mentioned is how medium has influenced the design (ink dispersion needs different "holes" in heavy weight forms). The same holds for architecture and materials being used.