I know that I can change my desktop to look however I want, but I want more than my desktop to look good — I want the default desktop to look good right out of the box, for the purpose of attracting new users.

And, because I dislike the amateur stuff being peddled at GNOME-Look and similar sites, I did selfishly have my hopes up that Canonical would be able to produce the first theme I actually enjoyed using.

“but for the ave­rage user…they don’t care.” I disagree. In fact I think the average user cares a great deal how their desktop looks, or, at the very least, their opinion of an operating system is informed to a large extent by how the desktop looks. They of course don’t consciously examine pixel metrics and font hinting and gradients, etc., but they most likely notice them subconsciously, contributing to an vague un-ease with their computing environment. All these little things add up to make a bad impression.

“It is trivial for the user to change everything to the way each user wants it.” I also disagree with this. While it’s trivial to change among the pre-installed themes, knowing where to go for new themes and what to do with them once you’ve got them is not “trivial” — it’s not difficult by any means, but it’s something you have to look up the solution for. And it’s something you’d only attempt to do after having decided to live in Ubuntu for a while — a decision you’re less likely to make if you’re promptly turned off by the aesthetics of it.

There is no substitute for the experience of the first five minutes of using any piece of software, and if Ubuntu is going to convince people to give it a chance, it needs to be more attractive by default than it is.