However, what we have is a situation where, what, 90+% of big or public buildings are "modern architecture". The people who are paying for them and/or the people for whom they are built think they are ugly. We're trapped in this bad local equilibrium.

If there were some sort of agreement in a group of people about what they want, and then they build it, and it's "modern architecture" - that would be fine. But that's not where we are. It's more like the tastemakers have a stranglehold on the rest of us.