>>Agreed here - usability is understood, nobody wants to buy a thing which won't work (but they still do :). Taking usability as a given, among a few equally usable items, I'd still take the one more aesthetically pleasing. Specially if it's not a consumable, but something that will remain displayed for a number of years. IOW, I'm not buying "nice but useless", but I want "not just useless, but also nice" for my money. And, ahem, kitsch, faux antiquity, and other quasi-stylistic stuff is maybe nice, made to look nice, and may be even recognized as nice by some, but remains under doubt and generally doesn't fall under "aesthetically pleasing" in my book. There may be cases when kitsch achieves a peak of self-irony and comes full circle back, but these are probably very rare.
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>You might want to rethink your phrase I want "not just useless, but also nice" for my money. I know where you can get some nice lava lamps. Ok, I realise that's an oxymoron.

Um... mix up the curtain, I got pulled down :)

I meant "not just usable, but also nice"... lapsus mentis, I suppose.