It's not foolish. Design is subjective and it's most often a question with no objectively good answer, so it's between the designer and whoever appraises his output. There's no secret design paradigm that makes everyone happy.
It is all about fooling the viewer. Like for example seeing some run down old buildings in US or Eastern Europe will make people scoff, but if you show them similar looking run down buildings in South Mediterranean Europe or Japan they will be in awe. It's about perception.
>Design is subjective
No it isn't. Just like art and people's appearances, there's unanimously objective on what's beautiful and what's ugly.
The redesigned Pepsi logo is objectively worse, which is why it was so short lived and reverted back to the original design.
People who say there's no such thing as ugly design because it's al subjective are coping hard or trying to sell their design agency.
Neither of those things is true. Plenty of artistic movements have been both praised and derided, and many people have a "type" which influences who they do (or don't) find attractive.
As to idea that there's a universally agreed-upon definition of objectively pleasing design, I suggest you take a look at the work of the Memphis Group.
[0] https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...