Design was important enough to you to post your own comment talking about it and your own preferences, and how important it is to competition, so why are you questioning it's importance to someone else?
If it's built well, dependable, ergonomic and delivers on the promise it's written on the box, I'm perfectly happy with what I got.
Yes, I have my tastes, like everybody else, but I don't satisfy my taste first and try to fill the specs to that taste. On the contrary, I start with the features and quality level I want, and go from there.
It isn't a good proxy. Couple examples: Apple sold laptops with wonky keyboards for years and still sells a mouse that charges from the bottom when the battery dies.
While I also understand that Apple Magic Mouse looks atrocious with that port on the bottom, just charging it for two minutes gives you 8 hours of runtime. Why can’t people plug it in while going to get a coffee and unplug and finish the day with that quick charge? Then you can leave it charging for the night.
If you really want some bad examples, look at some popular cars. Many of them don’t care about your finger, and happily chop it off if you put it the wrong place at the wrong time.
I think you might be conflating design and cosmetics.
Design is objective, cosmetics is subjective. I like good design even if I don't care much for cosmetics.
Read "The Design of Everyday Things" , Donald E. Norman. This book is routinely recommended here, with good reason.