It's common occurrence having software dismissed as second rate because it's "ugly" or non-conforming to current design trends. Although form and function should enhance each other we've now reached a point where changes to form actively harm function. Toolbars are gone, menus are gone, icons are abstract outlines of what they represent, discoverability in GUI applications is hampered. I can find quite a few examples of applications both mobile and desktop that have become increasingly frustrating to use for no benefit whatsoever. "Where has this button gone? I'm sure it was here before"; "Oh I need to click the nondescript three-bullet button, then tap actions and there it is!"; "But the colours are now nice". Especially in a productivity tool I'd rather not have the interface change every other release because it's "ugly" by some abstract metric. Although I believe the ribbon turned out to be a decent design I'm fairly certain that wouldn't have been the case if Microsoft had changed again to something completely different within a release.

So, yeah... Please give me ugly but predictable interfaces.