>Qt is not nearly as easy to use as Electron, especially if you're a small company and need to hire front end devs for cheap.

Sure it is.

>Also Qt GUIs look like garbage, but it's hard to quantify why.

No more garbage-like than you're getting with Electron and just as style-able (with arguable superior layout engines). Qt has a number of style palettes; perhaps you're used to using applications which chose to use non-native/standard palettes.

I've written apps with GTK, Qt and Electron in the past. Of the three frameworks, Qt is easily the hardest (albeit "the best" for cross-platform native development). I'm not sure what your experience is with it, but I never once felt like it was easier than writing an Electron app.

What are some examples of great-looking QT applications?

Kdenlive, Okular, KeePassXC, Dolphin.

J has an IDE written in Qt. It's nice.

Qt has provided us with a solid multi-platform solution. If you want power and control, you always have to pay in complexity and learning curve.