There are also the programmers that do get that, but just don't have the ability to change it. I'm no artist, but I can tell you when something looks bad. I'm constantly playing with CSS to learn new things to make things look better. I'm now in that category of "it looks like someone tried but just didn't achieve, but better than most" level of design.

Programmers making things for other programmers will always be forgiven as long as it works. Programmers making things for the general population will not be forgiven to the same extent if at all. As soon as someone releases something that is polished, it will be used even if it doesn't work as well.