>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.

OK, here's an example:
http://www.uncrate.com/men/gear/office/charles-ray-eames-postage-stamps/

So these guys were important enough at some point to merit being on postage stamps today. I somehow don't see the stuff they designed belongs in designer shops for the uppity uppers, but in mass production. Though, I wasn't here at the time - was it mass produced?

What happened later? When did good design get lost and how did it happen that we're stuck with ugly stuff again?