The alternative is design by an elite group with a strong opinion. I'm very much in favor of that model provided that this elite group is knowledgable about all the tasks that users actually want to perform.

I think that's possible for consumer electronics but not for general purpose computing. No one can design for data center sysadmins, data scientists, financial analysts, architects and mobile salespeople at the same time without making mistakes.

Being opinionated in an area where your opinion is irrelevant is just being stupid.